Inspiring people: The Designer

At 16 years of age, Boyan Slat saw more plastic bags than fish when scuba diving in Greece. He thought: “Why can’t we just clean this up?” This question led him to research the plastic pollution problem for a school project. In 2012, Boyan held a TedX talk about how to rid the world’s oceans of plastic using technology. The video went viral, and the momentum that followed allowed him to drop out of school and found The Ocean Cleanup. They have the incredible goal of reducing 95% of the ocean's floating plastics by 2040.

To find out more about Boyan's incredible story, check it out here!

Coming up with ideas is one thing, but having the drive to see them through to the end result is entirely another. That where the Designer thrives - having the smarts to be able to plan something out on paper, having the drive to be able to push it through to the development stages, and having the hands-on ability to craft their idea into a real, tangible thing. It becomes like their baby, something that has to be protected and nurtured, and they're more than happy to keep working and coming up with changes and new ideas until they've found perfection.

Boyan Slat is the perfect definition of a STEAM wonder - Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths. It's important to be able to combine the creative side of the arts and the tech-savvy, science side of the rest of STEM to ensure that ideas don't just sit in the paper and never get made. Besides, going viral on social media was what catapulted Boyan into the amount of funding he needed to start his project, and there's nothing more arts-based than media marketing!

So get out there, get inspired by this story, and get designing!