How to attract Silicon Valley and Gen Zs

Silicon Valley could help the mining industry solve problems from funding to smelting but tech wizards shouldn’t necessarily run a mine, panellists told a conference on financing trends in New York.

Tyler Hall, a 2023 Stanford graduate with a PhD in geology, co-founded ExploreTech to use data science and machine learning for drill planning and cloud computing. He says the San Francisco technology and venture capital hub is waiting for the industry to give it direction. He has also formed a WhatsApp group of 40 students across the world called the New Industrialists.

“It’s really an interesting trend that’s starting, but they don’t necessarily know where to look, or who to talk to, or where to go,” Hall told a May 21 session at the event run by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration. “They really cannot wait to meet you because they want a deeper insight from people operating in the industry.”

Hugo Schumann, CEO of the silver unit at Hindustan Zinc, the world’s third-biggest silver producer, sees automation, digitalization, electric vehicles and drones being used in mines. Research is needed to conserve water and upgrade processing methods that are decades old, he said.

Atusa Sadeghi, vice-president for North America at Denver-based private equity firm Resource Capital Funds, with about US$2.5 billion under management, says any company using new technology to improve its output or emissions deserves investor attention.

Millennials

Hall, who’s worked in mining since 2013, and Sadeghi disputed Schumann’s premise that base metals such as nickel, zinc and iron ore are boring to Millennials and Gen Zs. They are interested, Sadeghi said, but it’s more about the “eco-system” that contains mining.

“What can you do to make the lives of those who are working outside in those environments easier, irrespective of what they’re mining for?” she asked. “And when you talk through technologies that you’re seeing today, every day – AI, Gen AI, big data, analysis of synthesizing data – that’s really what people want to be excited for and contribute to.”

Taking mining to Millennials and Gen Zs shouldn’t be about appealing to those using sports betting apps and Reddit stock analysis, Kai Hoffman, CEO of Vancouver-based Soar Financial, said. Instead, try explaining projects on YouTube.

“Mining is very technical. You cannot dumb it down. You can simplify it, but you can’t get rid of it,” Hoffman said. “Be approachable, use those tools, use a decent camera, get a decent microphone and get in front of that audience.”

Chad Williams, founder of Toronto-based Red Cloud Securities, said he’s concerned that as baby-boomers age and become more risk-averse, the Millennials and Gen Zs aren’t replacing them as investors. But every time the industry cycle performs well, it attracts naïve new investors who should use professional funds, he added.

“It scares me that some ultra-high net worth individuals will be taken advantage of,” Williams said. “They are clearly out of their lane, out of their league, in terms of investing.”

Bio-mining

New technology could improve company decision-making by better linking all staff: mine operators, design engineers and C-suite capital allocators, Sadeghi said. One concept gaining interest among start-ups, she said, is bio-mining – using microbes to harvest metals such as copper, gold, uranium and nickel. RCF is among funders helping them acquire land to prove their concepts, she said.

Schumann focused on water. Technologies to conserve it are becoming more important especially as the world’s largest copper mines are located in deserts such as the Atacama in Chile and the Sonoran in Arizona, but new mines face battles for water permits.

“It’s just a fascinating area that people maybe aren’t focused on yet enough,” Schumann said. “Water is going to be a critical thing over the next couple of decades in mining.”

Hoffmann said the industry needs innovation in processing so that high-arsenic copper can be smelted locally instead of being shipped to China. Schumann demurred.

“It is incredibly hard to compete with a country that’s going to use thermal coal blindly to generate power,” he said. “Smelters are incredibly energy intensive and China and India are way ahead in the smelting game.”

Running a mine

Should a group of venture capitalists buy an existing mine?

“A terrible idea,” said Schumann, noting most Silicon Valley experience is limited to software and perhaps some decarbonization and energy-related technologies. “Owning a mine is a whole different skill set and they have no idea what they’re doing.”

But then KoBold Metals, backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, is “a bunch of Harvard PhDs” trying to build a mining company with its main Mingomba copper project in Zambia, Schumann said.

“They may succeed,” he said. “They’re really bright guys, but it’s just going to be really hard. Where Silicon Valley is playing in the mining industry is on the technology side, data science companies, where they understand more than owning and operating mine.”