Speaker 1: 0:30

My name's Adriana. As you introduced, I am the founder of the Allura's Embrace. What we do is we serve artisan soaps in a way that's whole, in a circular model. So what that means is every cell is reinvested into our technology division, Allura Technologies, and what we do is we grow aeroponic grow towers or we produce or make aeroponic grow towers. We try to feed communities through community gardens, but our take is a bit non-traditional in a sense, because most community gardens they take soil, they take water, they take resources, and what we're trying to do is we're trying to cut back on resources but maximize yield. Doing that, we are launching our first pilot garden in PWC, right off Print Route 1.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Wow.

Speaker 1: 1:35

So those gardens are meant to feed. One garden is 12 towers, so we're looking to feed and provide free produce which has multiple benefits less packaging, more healthy options Because, as we know, America is a lot more dependent on the fast food and more processed packaging foods and we're trying to cut that back and we noticed that it has a ripple effect in healthcare and in preventative health. So we're kind of touching on three birds with one stone.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Yeah, that's amazing. Take me back a bit. What originally inspired you to focus on reshaping industries and communities through social impact and innovation?

Speaker 1: 2:27

That's a good question. So it all started with one issue. It was a personal issue. With one issue. It was a personal issue, so it was soaps. I couldn't find a skincare brand that didn't irritate my skin or did it dry it out or did it make it feel heavy, and so I formulated my own soap recipes and I researched and I researched, and I researched and I researched and we came out with a honey oat brand that's light on the skin, it cleans, it's made with all natural, certified ingredients, which is really healthy for the skin. They moisturize and really calm the skin. So if you have anything like sensitive skin or acne, all the soaps are really good for that.

Speaker 2: 3:19

Okay, so like eczema, things like that.

Speaker 1: 3:29

Yes, we do have a sensitive skin or we're in the middle of formulating soaps for sensitive skin like mine. And it was that personal issue. And the deeper I dug, I found out that it was a more systematic issue with huge corporations, and that's what I'm out to tackle is those huge corporations using chemical, synthetic ingredients that just aren't natural for the human body, and our soaps are also biodegradable. So it all started from soaps and those soaps have a bigger purpose. They build towers, they fund our towers and they also portion of the proceeds, being a volunteer EMT, also go to Dell City volunteer fire department.

Speaker 2: 4:12

That's really amazing. Aurora's Embrace is described as the foundation of your B Corp empire, reshaping industries and communities. Can you explain what that means in your day-to-day work?

Speaker 1: 4:24

Reshaping communities and, it being the foundation, the Aurora's Embrace, was incorporated as a 501c. To start, I didn't want a for-profit model, and there are five core values that I hold near and dear to my heart, so we go by the acronym CARE. What that means is CARE C stands for connection, a stands for authenticity, r stands for resilience, a stands for authenticity, r stands for resilience and the E stands for empowerment. And that's what I try to do in my every day-to-day life is I want to leave an impact and inspire people to go out and reach their dreams and accomplish what they set out to do. My dad raised me to always shoot for the stars, and he was part of the big inspiration for this whole project and the company.

Speaker 2: 5:34

Yeah, that's really amazing. Your vision places people before profit, emphasizing grassroots social entrepreneurship powered by technology. How does this vision guide the decisions you make at Aurora's Embrace?

Speaker 1: 5:47

Social entrepreneurship, that's a good one. So social, what I mean by social entrepreneurship is a company that focuses on people and not just stakeholders or profit margins, or they actually reach out into the community that they serve, and we don't see a lot of corporations do that. So, with that said, we start at the local level, because I believe that if you make those who are near happy, that those that are far will follow, and that's what I accomplish when I mean our grassroots initiatives. So we start local and we focus on the people that are around us, which translates into community, which translates into counties, which translates into regions and states. Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:48

Wow, I haven't heard that term a lot either social entrepreneurship so that was very insightful and very informative.

Speaker 1: 6:55

So, being a B Corp, it's a hybrid between a nonprofit and a for-profit. So what B Corp stands for and I'm happy you brought this up, because not many people know is it's a public benefit corporation and it's a corporation that serves the interest of the public and its benefit.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Absolutely. Let's dive into your three-pillar operational ideology. Can you briefly outline what conscious innovation, community empowerment and regenerative economics mean within Aurora's Embrace?

Speaker 1: 7:36

All right, so let's touch on regenerative economics. So, as I mentioned a lot before, regenerative. It's a secular motto because, like Elon, with his fascination with X and the letter X, my fascination is with circles and I've learned a lot from a lot of the top players and a lot of them are a big inspiration to me. And circular economics means that every part of our operation feeds into the other, so our artists and social selves feed into funding, our towers, research and development, and then circles back around to the community and it's one big giant loop. We believe. I believe that if you can find a way to serve people and make it cycle and come back around, that it's a better way to invest in profits, because the more you invest, the more you'll get out of it. Yeah Well, thank you for educating our audience on that.

Speaker 2: 9:04

It definitely makes a lot of sense and I like that you compared your fascination with circles to Elon's. Whatever fascination with With the letter X conscious innovation. You focus on human-centered design and ethical technology. Can you share an example of technology or service you've developed that embodies these values?

Speaker 1: 9:24

With the traction that Allura Technologies and our grow towers and our soaps have gained over the last few months, since the start of the year and since the start of the Aurora's Embrace.

Speaker 2: 9:40

Too many examples.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:44

We can come back to it as well if we need more time to yeah, yeah absolutely, that would be nice. Why is it important for Aurora's Embrace to access the sustainability and ethical impact of its innovations before bringing them forward?

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yeah, that's a good question. The reason we focus on ethical impacts of our innovations is because of our audience, of the Allure Embraces audience. We target our own generation, gen Z and millennials. You know, people who see the system, is it working, but not, are not sure quite how to take action. And that leads to the innovation hub, ethical design. We try to reach out to the community for their to see what is best needed in that one local area and we design around what is needed. Unlike major systems, we're able to direct funds to where it's needed most, so we can provide that really for what's needed.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Is there a specific example of a community that you did this for that comes to mind, or like a time when you address specific needs?

Speaker 1: 11:14

That's another amazing question. So a good example of reaching out to a community would be being at EMT. Yeah, reaching out to in community would be being at EMT. I focus around public service because that's where a lot of my family is in and I have a cousin that's a social worker. My mom is a teacher, my aunts a nurse, so all in public service. And being an EMT plays a huge part in all of this, because I'm focused on helping people and making sure they have what they need to be empowered.

Speaker 2: 11:57

Yeah, that's a great answer and thank you for your service and for your family's service as well, because they're definitely underappreciated roles that you kind of mentioned there. I definitely agree with it. In your community empowerment pillar, you emphasize building capacity and fostering leadership. How are you practically equipping communities to become self-sustaining?

Speaker 1: 12:24

That's another good question. So when we do, when we mean self-sustaining is we have a concept that's very unique, which means me and my team are working on designing grid-independent communities with solar and sustainable architecture which are entirely self-sustaining through our technology, our grow towers and that kind of circles back into the concept.

Speaker 2: 13:12

Yeah, amazing. Do you have a story where your community leadership programs or skills initiatives transformed a local community or an individual leader? Just a small story. If you can think of one, a local community or an individual leader?

Speaker 1: 13:33

Just a small story. If you can think of one, One that transformed a community leader, that's a good one. Or just an individual leader? I don't really. I don't really, I don't think I really notice. I'm too. I'm a lot of time I'm out on the front lines and yeah, absolutely that's okay. I was just so curious.

Speaker 2: 13:59

But yeah, no, it seems like you're out there on the front lines, quite literally as an EMT as well.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Yeah, so I just I haven't noticed.

Speaker 2: 14:08

Yeah Well, I'm sure that other people have noticed, though and taken kind of the values that you instill and the programs and skills. I don't think those have gone unnoticed. Regenerative economics is a bold step beyond sustainability, focusing on restoration and circular wealth. As you mentioned, the circles, how does Aurora's Embrace apply regenerative models in its operations beyond what you've told us?

Speaker 1: 14:40

That's another good question. Applying regenerative to earth economics. We are currently designing AI systems that can monitor the climate and pollutants in the atmosphere, as well as rain, and we are trying to currently equip our towers with it. So, with that being said, our AI what we're looking to do is to create a data point, an analytics point, already built into our towers. That way, we can monitor the climate and see where we need to take action the most.

Speaker 2: 15:24

That's fascinating. Yeah, I hear a lot of discourse about AI being bad for the environment, but it's interesting how you're using it as a tool.

Speaker 1: 15:33

That's a great point that I think you brought up. A lot of people have discourse over the whole AI boom and being in AI and trying to design it. A lot of people use it to extract profit and not really as a tool that it should be. I think AI in the right sense, being used as a tool to collect data, analyze it and process it faster than we can to spot patterns that we can't. We can act quicker and be on top of emerging issues, and that's just another way that we regenerate with our circular model in our ecosystem.

Speaker 2: 16:16

That is such a great point. Thank you so much for sharing that. Let's see you talk about social enterprise incubation and impact investment models. How do these strategies help communities build generational wealth while aligning with the Aurora's mission?

Speaker 1: 16:33

And we believe that when we are the hand reaching back down, that comes back. And when we reach out, we are creating a sense of empowerment. And when that empowerment does is it inspires people to save. And when we create wealth I'm not talking wealth in the sense of monetary or anything like that, I'm more along the lines of creating wealth in the terms of I would say I completely lost track Maybe in a more holistic sense of wealth.

Speaker 1: 17:33

So I'm glad you said holistic, that's a great way to explain it. I'm glad you said holistic, that's a great way to explain it. So holistic wealth means being whole, doing what needs to be done for the mind as well as for the body, and I think to me, people focus on one aspect and we forget. We're a complex system, just like anything else.

Speaker 2: 18:08

Exactly, yeah, and if you're not holistically well, that can potentially be passed on generations as well, because you're, you know, maybe raising kids or raising families and you need to be in that, you need to be well as well. So I totally understand how that translates into generational wealth, but not in the sense that we normally think about it.

Speaker 1: 18:21

So that's really awesome. I'm kind of glad you touched on that. I'm going to go a bit more into detail. Yeah, and I noticed you said generational and I think that if we can't be, if we can't be, let me back up. So when we touch on that, we're touching on authenticity, which is another value of mine, and when we act authentically, we create a sense of self-reflection and which we can begin to see the problems that we have and begin to fix that, because a lot of us, I think that we live in a bubble and it's hard to self-reflect and be honest with yourselves, with ourselves, which translates, like you said, to families and generations. And if we can see our problems, we don't pass on that generational trauma that we inherited, that we inherited.

Speaker 2: 19:37

Absolutely yeah, I love that you made that point. So thank you for circling back and going a little more in depth. What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced in aligning innovation, ethics and community impact, and how have you navigated them?

Speaker 1: 19:52

That's a good question. So the biggest challenge was not getting the hand that I needed to get going and getting started. Getting started was probably the hardest because fun rise and I think that when people think business, they think I need a ton of capital to get started. And I hope that with this story, we can inspire to or allow people to see that you don't need a ton of wealth to get started, that if you have an idea, you have a dream. All it takes is a little bit of action. Because when I first started this, I didn't know what I was doing, and I still don't to a point.

Speaker 1: 20:46

But, with that said, I think that just jumping in and going headfirst, you don't make mistakes. It happens, it's part of life, and I think that those mistakes are turning points to ultimate, more ultimate wins. And people have a way of looking around to failure, working up at failure, and they say they look at failure and I used to be this way too and saying, oh, I failed, I can't do this, I give up, but without realizing that that failure was your most important lesson. And I failed so many times that I can't count. I lost track and each one of those stories they taught me something and I kept persevering. And that's where the R comes in resilience. And I believe in resilience because without a little bit of resilience it takes throughout life.

Speaker 2: 21:58

Yeah, absolutely. I loved how you said mistakes are turning points to ultimate wins. Yeah, that is just an excellent takeaway. Looking ahead, what is your vision for the future of the Aurora's Embrace and what impact do you hope to see in future communities and industries as a result of your work?

Speaker 1: 22:18

Simply put, I want to see entire industries dismantled or entire systems rebuilt to serve not just profit.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:29

And that's what I'm after.

Speaker 2: 22:31

Yeah, I like that. It's a clear mission and you're very determined and you've done a lot of work to set you on that course and to start chipping away, so that's really great. Is there anything else about the Aurora's Embrace, your vision for empowering communities or your mission in general that we haven't touched on? That you want us to?

Speaker 1: 22:52

I think you did an amazing job of touching on all of the pain points that there are, so I do appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 23:02

Yeah, of course. Well, thank you so much, adriana, for coming in and sharing your insights and story today. This has been a fascinating conversation and I know that our audience will leave inspired by how the Aurora's Embrace is driving ethical, sustainable and regenerative change, and I think we all have an incredible takeaway of you. Know, mistakes are just turning points towards ultimate wins.

Speaker 1: 23:29

I'm glad you brought that back up. But yeah, I believe in resilience and I hope that if our audience takes one thing away, it'd be that yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:43

Dare I say that's one of the most important things in life in my opinion.