Ashish Kapoor Wants to Meet in the Radical Middle
Written by Bill Kent | Photo by Michael Butcher
Last fall, Ashish Kapoor, the Piedmont Environmental Council’s senior energy and climate adviser, was asked to apply to do a TEDx Warrenton talk. His first response was to sit down and think about it.
TEDx Warrenton is a volunteer-run branch of the Vancouver-based TED (technology, entertainment, and design) nonprofit that asks people with “ideas worth spreading” to make short video presentations that can be seen for free online. Now in its fifth year, TEDx Warrenton videos have come from Marshall’s Field & Main owner Neal Warva (“Why You Should Practice Everyday Hospitality”), Baltimore futurist and astronaut candidate Lisa Alcindor on living in space, D.C. motivational speakers Dr. Willie Jolley and Dee Taylor-Jolley (“How to Never Argue in a Marriage Again”), and Richmond’s Babylon Micro-Farms CEO Alexander Olesen on vertical farming.
PEC President Chris Miller acknowledges that he urged Kapoor to do it. “I encouraged him to incorporate his experience at PEC, especially our focus on bottom-up, grassroots, landowner-led efforts around conservation, restoration, and preservation.”
“The natural landscape that can be so important in shaping your vision of the world, or just providing an interesting place to freely imagine and explore, was gone. It made me ask if a better balance could be found between the natural areas and the community needs.”
–Kapoor
Since joining PEC three years ago, Kapoor has been the organization’s point person on distributed power generation and agrivoltaics: the combination of solar and agricultural production on the same land.
“I looked at a few TED talks and I began to write,” Kapoor says. “I connected with a wonderful coach, Devin Marks, who worked with me to develop my idea.”
He started with his background. Born in Cleveland and raised in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and India, Kapoor became an environmentalist when he returned to one of his childhood hometowns for a visit. “It is a small town in western Pennsylvania, and I used to camp around there when I was in the Boy Scouts,” he says. “It was peaceful, beautiful, quiet, and inspiring.”
Years later, as a young adult, he found it “developed, but not in a good way.”
Kapoor adds that while he is not against development, “the natural landscape that can be so important in shaping your vision of the world, or just providing an interesting place to freely imagine and explore, was gone. It made me ask if a better balance could be found between the natural areas and the community needs.”
The notion of a balance, a middle ground between extremes, stayed with him.
A graduate of Penn State and Rutgers University Law School, he argued environmental cases before judges and juries earlier in his career. Though he’d never done a TED talk, or anything like it, he had a story to tell.
As a child of immigrants who moved frequently, he had to “learn to walk between worlds.” That led to many positive experiences, but a few unexpectedly negative ones, such as being teased for his American accent when his family briefly lived in India. This was among the experiences that would craft his worldview and that he would explore in his TED talk.
On October 25, 2025, Kapoor and his wife, Susmitha, with their two daughters, Sonali and Saana, left their home in Aldie and drove to an auditorium at Laurel Ridge Community College’s Warrenton campus. In addition to the well-wishers and members of the local community in the audience, there were 11 other speakers who would get one chance to deliver their talks. There would be no retakes.
Kapoor delivered an upbeat, engaging speech about three ways to find the “radical middle”: a place for people with opposing views that is safe, judgement-free, and conducive to solving problems. Even if it doesn’t bring an immediate solution, a journey to the radical middle, Kapoor stated in his talk, can create new relationships based on trust and mutual respect.
Near the end, he cited agrivoltaics as an example of how a new idea can get better reception when it is introduced “through the lens” of the radical middle.
“Ashish has practiced what his TEDx talk preached throughout his time with us. His talk speaks to the need for people to have open minds and hearts, and where we find divides between us, we can look within ourselves for the ways to bridge them.” –McCarthy
“The response,” Miller says, “has been tremendous.” Kapoor has already received a handful of speaking invitations, including dates at Virginia Tech, James Madison University, Virginia State University, Warrenton’s Highland High School, and his alma mater, Penn State.
“I’ve gotten messages from family, friends, old teachers, and strangers. They were all positive. The response to the concepts has been encouraging,” Kapoor reflects.
Hanover County farmer and Virginia Farm Bureau advocacy specialist Rachel Henley applauded the way Kapoor explained agrivoltaics, especially since she and Kapoor have just finished drafting legislation on the subject. “This is such a complex topic, and I think he explained it well for the common ratepayer to better understand what is happening in the energy space in Virginia and beyond.”
John McCarthy, PEC’s director of strategic partnerships, says, “Ashish has practiced what his TEDx talk preached throughout his time with us. His talk speaks to the need for people to have open minds and hearts, and where we find divides between us, we can look within ourselves for the ways to bridge them.”
Kapoor has no immediate plans for future talks. He shares that the response “has been heartening, but I never wanted any attention from this. With the talk, I spoke my heart.” ML
To view Kapoor’s talk, visit youtube.com.
Published in the April 2026 issue of Middleburg Life.