Our Climate Journey with Niket Sanghvi
“To me, sustainability means prioritizing the future of our planet, our homes, and the next generations.”
Niket Sanghvi
Group Product Manager
Niket is a Product Lead at Zum, where he helps craft the strategy and define the company’s products for Routers, District and School Staff, Parents, and Students. Niket brings over 16 years of experience using technology to solve complex problems with multiple customers. When he is not coming up with the latest cutting-edge feature, you will find him spending time with his wife and two kids, aged 2 and 5, or building something in his garage.
At Zum, we’re revolutionizing student transportation in order to build a green, sustainable future. What does sustainability mean to you?
To me, sustainability means prioritizing the future of our planet, our homes, and the next generations.
Everything changed when I had kids. Before, in my mind, it was just me and my wife. Not anymore. It’s completely altered the way I think about conservation, because I want there to be a better planet for my children.
We do small things around the house to try and contribute to that effort. My sister-in-law got us all hooked on reusable cloth paper towels, so we’re not wasting those all the time. They’re compostable. And no more single use plastic sandwich bags—we have the reusable ones. It’s not just conserving, but also setting the example we want our kids to follow in the future.
Climate change is the single greatest threat to our way of life, but it can sometimes feel abstract, far away, a problem for another time. How has climate change affected you personally?
One of the most obvious ways I experience this has been the weather.
Before moving to California, I spent a lot of time in Chicago. My family is still there, and when I talk to them, I hear about how there’s freezing weather right before summer. That’s crazy, and definitely not what I remember growing up.
Then, I moved to California in 2018. My family and I live in Dublin. Our neighbors are older, and have been in their house since the 1980s. Recently, they got air conditioning. When I asked them about it, they said they never used to need it. It used to be enough to leave the windows open in the summer. Now, they need A/C. Not long after that conversation, my wife and I put in air conditioning. We needed it, too.
That’s something that’s going to continue happening over time.
What can Zum do to be a leader in sustainability, to spearhead the charge in the fight against climate change?
At Zum, we can continue making the best product possible, which will result in a better, more environmentally friendly transportation service.
Here’s a perfect example. We have incorporated notifications and real-time tracking into everything we do. So parents know when their kids are getting picked up and dropped off, and so do school administrators. That means load times—the time it takes a kid to get on and off the bus—is at a minimum. Because parents and administrators know EXACTLY when the bus is coming, the kids can be prepared. This can shave a minute or two off a bus’s commute. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but at scale, 1-2 minutes at every stop is actually hours and hours of loading time that we’ve saved. That means less diesel fuel burned, or more time for an EV at the charging depot.
This is an example of how better technology, a better product, and doing things the right way, actually leads to a more sustainable transportation practice. Let’s do more of that.