PR production indomitable spirit travel
Amerikanske Wes
My grandparents were big travelers. In 2016 they biked across Denmark on their new ebikes. As big proponents of social entrepenuership, they made a stop at one of the most successful private-public business partnerships in the world: ProjectZero, an organization attempting to reduce carbon emissions in the Sonderborg region of south Denmark to zero by 2029.
Cut to 2022. My grandma told me I should apply for an internship there. I thought she was friends with the guy who ran it, so I shot him an email. Turns out, no, she just met him once. But she made an impression.
“Ah, the crazy woman that biked from Copenhagen on an electric bike! That was your grandmother?” Turns out that a crazy grandmother, skills in writing and production, and a spirit of adventure are all it takes to get flown out to Denmark for 4 weeks.
While there I learned a lot: about sustainability and a carbon zero ecosystem, about what I like and dislike in a work environment, and - most importantly - about myself. Being alone in a country completely independently and the only fluent English speaker within 100 kilometer really breeds introspection and growth.
Sønderborg, Denmark
Giving international journalists the tour of Sonderborg
What am I even doing HERE
My role within the organization was on an auxiliary team put together by the founder of the company, Peter Rathje - the guy who met my grandmother 6 years ago. The group’s purpose was to plan for the upcoming IEA Conference, a summit of world leaders discussing the future of energy and sustainability globally.
I did a number of random tasks. Most not worth mentioning. Well, okay I’ll talk about the live streaming I did for a local news broadcast as cameraman. The directions I were given were “when I say these things, do this with the camera.” Only he was live streaming in Danish. Which I don’t speak. So I couldn’t understand the cues. Turns out you can tell a lot by intently watching someone’s facial expressions.
LINAK Technology
The bulk of my time there was taken up by going around the region to different companies that were working on green initiatives and learning about what they were doing to reduce their carbon emissions. I also visited a number of power plants and other infrastructure elements that contributed to the carbon neutral ecosystem. The goal was to then take my learnings and refine it into one press package I could put on a flash drive and pawn off to journalists who visited the city for the IEA Conference. The whole plan was a little insane and half baked. Why was I, a foreigner who just started learning about this company, in charge of the press materials being spread to global journalists? Still not sure, but I was along for the ride.
My true purpose
Really though, personally I had one goal in mind: create content. My dream was to create a series of videos demonstrating the ways that Sonderborg created a green ecosystem. However, a lot got in my way of creating the documentary series I had dreamed of. C’est la vie. I’m still quite proud of the video I managed to produce while there.
