Javier Fernandez-Han

Javier Fernández-Han and Ashok Gadgil, 2003 and 2009 / Photos: Berkeley Lab News Center

One of the young inventors we met this morning was sixteen-year-old Javier Fernández-Han, who was both the winner and the youngest entrant of Youth Venture's Invent Your World challenge last year.

I sat with Javier and his wonderfully supportive dad Peter at the pre-conference dinner on Wednesday and again this evening. Not only is he already an extremely talented inventor; he's also among the very best at articulating and explaining his ideas, regardless of age. Javier's invention, dubbed the VERSATILE system, uses algae to treat waste and produce oil, oxygen, and food for humans and livestock. It's also completely greenhouse-gas neutral, even though it has a stove. In Javier's words, "Algae is nature's Swiss Army knife. It gets rid of many things we don’t want and produces many things that we need."