Karina Cady, co-founder and CEO of Nandina REM, joins Michael Smith Jr. and Raz Kotler to explain how a Singapore deep-tech company went from asking what happens to retired aircraft to recovering advanced materials for aerospace, defense, drones, and other high-performance applications.

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Karina takes us inside the aircraft recycling industry, where valuable components are stripped from retired planes but advanced materials can still end up crushed, incinerated, or discarded. Nandina REM saw a different opportunity: recover high-grade carbon fiber and turn it into new materials for customers that need performance, supply-chain security, and locally controlled production.

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The conversation also gets into the much harder parts of building a deep-tech hardware company: finding manufacturing space in Singapore, navigating US export controls, entering defense supply chains, protecting IP from “vampiring,” and learning when a prestigious innovation opportunity can actually destroy a startup’s runway. Karina also explains how constraints pushed Nandina REM toward portable microfactories and a network of more than 200 manufacturing partners, why Singapore remains a powerful place to develop advanced technology even when growth requires going overseas, and why she remains optimistic about sustainability after spending most of her career in the environmental sector.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snct0XjAavo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=209V_xEBViM

🔔 Listen and Subscribe

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2apfGY403NGr1EyTNkJfG4

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-generalists/id1756861150

👤👤 Hosts

• Michael Smith Jr.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/

• Raz Kotler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/razkotler/

👤 Guest•

Karina Cady: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karinacady/

🔗 Resources

• Nandina REM: https://www.nandinarem.com/

• Southwest Airlines: https://www.southwest.com/

• Halliburton Labs: https://halliburtonlabs.com/

• Halliburton: https://www.halliburton.com/

• U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security: https://www.bis.gov/

• U.S. Department of Commerce: https://www.commerce.gov/

• U.S. Embassy Singapore: https://sg.usembassy.gov/

• CFIUS: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/international/the-committee-on-foreign-investment-in-the-united-states-cfius

• University of Queensland: https://www.uq.edu.au/

• Soilbuild: https://www.soilbuild.com/

• Boeing 787 Dreamliner: https://www.boeing.com/commercial/787

• Airbus: https://www.airbus.com/

• Northrop Grumman: https://www.northropgrumman.com/

• AUKUS: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/AUKUS/

• Jennifer Lewis: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0507338/

• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: https://www.nelsonmandela.org/

• Calvin and Hobbes: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes

#CarbonFiber #CircularEconomy #DefenseTech