Jiannan Zhu

Jiannan Zhu - Chinese, Asia and the Pacific

2020 Winner | Electronic engineer | Chinese

Nowadays, marine and freshwater ecosystems have become increasingly fragile due to various kinds of pollution. In China, around 1.32 to 3.53 million tons of garbage is discharged at sea annually, primarily originating from cities. This waste eventually converges into the growing 3.5 million square kilometers of garbage currently accumulating in the Pacific Ocean trash vortex. To resolve this issue, I founded ORCA-TECH in 2017 and have developed a series of autonomous electric boats adaptable to different water conditions to clean trash from freshwater surfaces at origin - before it reaches the sea. Water health status data is also collected by these artificial-intelligence boats. To date our boats have been deployed and have serviced aquatic ecosystems in more than 30 regions around the world producing thousands of HD maps and water status data for analysis. Over one million people benefit from our technology and our ability to clean and monitor aquatic ecosystems smartly, economically and safely.

I am pursuing my PhD in Electronic Engineering in Northwestern Polytechnic University and in 2017 founded ORCA-TECH - a high-tech company focusing on water surface self-driving technology and water sanitation robotics. I was trained by Technion in Israel and have worked in the Netherlands for robotics. I won the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 and was invited as a speaker at the Oceans Conference in California, the Falling Walls conference in Berlin and participated in the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Our product won the TOP 1 in Dyson Award China and got its CE certificate.

Disclaimer: NOTE: This content was shared online for the 2019 cycle of the Young Champions of the Earth programme and has not been updated. This listing does not constitute any endorsement by nor status with the UN Environment Programme.

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