Although SAIP has been quiet, we’ve been busy working on new ideas and insights to share with you. But before we do, we thought we’d kick off 2022 with an introduction to who we are and why we started the SAIP Newsletter.
We’re Alex and Sam, nice to meet you
We are a husband and wife team (newly so – one of the things we were off doing was getting married!). We live in London, UK but are both from Halifax, Nova Scotia and visit often. That’s why we typically take both a UK and Canadian perspective when writing the newsletter.
Why do we write the SAIP newsletter?
As mentioned in our first article, SAIP (Sam & Alex Investing Partnership) started out as a quarterly investing ‘newsletter’ that Alex sent to his mom as a joke. Sam then suggested doing it seriously, and here we are.
SAIP is equal parts Alex’s passion for renewable energy and investing mixed with Sam’s passion for storytelling and data visualization. So passionate in fact, we create SAIP for fun in our spare time.
A little bit about each of us
Alex works in the renewable energy space and has since 2013, when he lived in Nicaragua installing solar energy in remote communities with a NGO called blueEnergy.
Since then, he’s gotten his professional certification in solar business and installation at Solar Energy International in Colorado and an MBA from Coventry University in the UK. His professional life has always been centered around renewable energy and sustainability, currently working as a Client Success Manager at a software company called Eliq. There he helps utilities around the world engage and empower customers to understand and save energy.
Investing is a hobby. He loves research and finding new companies and technologies. His ability to share knowledge about responsible investing and have people listen sparked the idea to widen SAIP’s audience from one to now almost 100 subscribers.
Alex comes up with the topics for SAIP newsletters, researches and writes the articles.
Sam explored a series of different experiences that serendipitously came together as a career in data visualization.
She always worked in design communication, mostly at agencies in Canada and the UK. But she also had her own business called Better Left Said, creating hand lettering and illustration based projects (now its an online greeting card shop she runs with her Mom).
Her love of research brought her into the data field. Since then, she’s combined her right and left brain on endeavours like teaching data analytics, a masters in data visualization from University of the Arts London, and most recently, working as a data journalist.
Listening to Alex's talk about complex renewable energy and investing topics at length – an area she finds intimidating and confusing — also helped spark the idea for SAIP. She wanted to help make this area easier to understand for others (and more interesting — no offence, Alex).
Sam edits the newsletter, does data research, and designs graphics for SAIP.
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Stay tuned for more from us soon.
In the meantime, please read this important article we just wrote about How NS Power’s recent decision is blocking the progress of solar energy in our home province of Nova Scotia. It was also published in the opinions section on Huddle.
The article has been shared in the NS Solar community, and we hope it helped make a case to reverse the decision. As of February 2nd, 2022 the proposal has been blocked by incoming regulation by the NS Government, aimed at stopping the proposed fee and rate hikes.