Boyan Slat (1994) combines technology and entrepreneurism
to tackle global issues of sustainability.
While diving in Greece at the age of 16, he became frustrated
by coming across more plastic bags than fish, and
wondered: “why can’t we clean this up?” While still in secondary
school, he decided to dedicate half a year of research
to understand plastic pollution and the problems
associated with cleaning it up. This ultimately led to the
passive cleanup concept, which he presented at a TEDx
conference in 2012.
Unfazed by the critics who claimed it was impossible
to rid the oceans from plastic, Boyan put his aerospace
engineering studies on hold, assembled a global team of
more than 100 people, and crowdfunded $100,000 to investigate
the feasibility of his concept. The Ocean Cleanup
report marks the end to the first phase of the project,
and shares with the world for the first time the results of
this remarkable, yearlong tour-de-force.