OUR STORY

SKILLICORN Technologies LLC is a start-up company based in the US and UK, with a focus on addressing emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, The Middle East and Africa. Company principals are highly qualified water, wastes, food and renewable energy professionals covering the full spectrum from technology to finance, project management and marketing. 

In a world increasingly committed to lowering its carbon and water footprints in a responsible, sustainable fashion and producing enough water, food and energy to an exploding global population, SKILLICORN Technologies brings the right solutions at precisely the right time.

SKILLICORN Technologies’ unique, photosynthetically leveraged and highly synergistic “circular” water and energy systems are a model for tomorrow’s more sustainable world — a world we must all embrace if we are to sustain expectations of increasing wealth and wellbeing while populations — notably in Africa, South Asia and Latin America — continue to explode.
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 “Genuinely Profitable Wastewater and Municipal Solid Wastes Treatment and Recycling”

​​An Urbanizing Planet

Hollywood actor and Goodwill Ambassador to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD) Edward Norton has lent his voice to this eye opening video explaining the challenges and opportunities that come with an increasingly urbanized planet.

T H E   T E A M

Key Members

Paul William Skillicorn

CO-Founder, Managing Partner
​and Technical Director

Paul is a leading expert in the field of international development. Having worked with and for the full spectrum of the world’s leading multinational, bilateral and not-for-profit aid and development agencies and organizations, the breadth of his experience is significant: — from The World Bank, UNICEF, FAO, WHO and UNDP to USAID, CARE and OXFAM. He’s worked as a university faculty member specializing in both theoretical and applied science domains. He’s formed, managed and grown several NGOs and for profit companies specializing in community and agricultural development, food production, water and wastewater treatment and management and new crops and new materials development and commercialization. Personally, Paul believes his greatest achievement has been to pull together all this expertise to develop and implement at scale, a cutting edge model for rural development that employs the largely urban principle of functional interdependence to realize massive increases in the welfare of rural households — income gains of 10x and greater in a single project cycle.

Prof. Simon John Davies

scientific officer

Professor Simon J Davies has a BSc degree in Biochemistry, University of Wales, 1978, and a Masters in Animal Nutrition from Newcastle University, 1979 and a PhD from the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Scotland in 1984. He spent two years at the University of Idaho, USA undertaking his postdoctoral fellowship in fish nutrition 1984-86. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of International Aquafeed trade magazine since 2009.  ​

Professor Davies has over 36 years’ experience in academia and extensive teaching and research attainment. His aquaculture specialisation is in fish nutrition and feed technology that has enabled over 34 full time PhD student completions and supervision of generations of undergraduate and Masters Students in aquaculture and related biosciences. He has developed and led masters’ programmes in aquaculture at Plymouth University for over 28 years and served 6 years at Harper Adams University, UK and is currently an adjunct Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway and Emeritus Professor at Harper Adams. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham and visiting Professor at Bristol University Veterinary School. He has authored over 200 scientific papers, book chapters and commercial reports and was recently appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a Fellow of the Institution of Aquaculture, Singapore. He has advised many government agencies and grant awarding bodies, and acted as a consultant to numerous commercial companies in biotechnology and the feed industry. Professor Davies has made extensive visits overseas in each continent speaking at prestigious international events and scientific meetings. ​

Mani Vannan

Co-Founder, Managing Partner
​and Finance Director

Mani has more than 40 years’ experience in multinational banking as well as private and public sector planning and management. His experience covers the full gamut of contemporary public sector services and private sector industrial development and management: climate change and the environment, corporate finance, industrial planning and development and international banking. Mani has raised over $1 billion in financing for diverse energy and infrastructure development corporations. He has advised a plethora of companies and agencies, both large and small, across the full spectrum of energy and the environment. He stands today, at the very cutting edge of contemporary renewable energy system design, financing and implementation — with a personal focus on having a significant impact on climate change at a global level.

Ramiro Priale

Partner and Commercial
​Director

Ramiro has over 30 years of experience in wastewater treatment, water supply, agribusiness, information systems design, applied informatics and project management. Ramiro has worked with many international agencies and development agencies ranging from UNDP, IICA-OEA and The Pan American Health Organization (WHO). He has done so both domestically in Peru, locally in Latin America and abroad — from The US to Spain. He was the first National Director of Informatics for Peru. He has served as a board member for national, public sector banks and agricultural trade agencies. In Peru, Ramiro designed and managed the world’s first project to integrate health information across a full nation. Also in Lambayeque Peru, Ramiro helped initiate approvals and permitting for the world’s first major public sector Lemnaceae-based wastewater treatment plant — then providing the highest level of municipal wastewater treatment in Latin America. Decades later, he managed design and implementation of The Barranca Project, the first municipal wastewater treatment plant in Latin America to provide a fully potable treated effluent. Ramiro, pursuing his personal dream, has also received a Ph.D. In wastewater treatment systems and corporate social responsibility.