Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur who creates megaprojects as technological solutions to global problems. A former aerospace engineering student, Slat is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup; a Dutch foundation which develops advanced systems to rid world’s oceans of plastic. Placed on Time's 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders in Business for 2024.

Age 18, Slat devised a concept which utilizes the natural oceanic forces to passively catch and concentrate ocean plastic, through which the theoretical cleanup time could be reduced from millennia to mere years. In February 2013 he dropped out of his Aerospace Engineering study at TU Delft to start The Ocean Cleanup.

As The Ocean Cleanup’s CEO, Slat currently gives lead to a team of about 80 people, but spends most of his time on research and engineering, through which he co-authored about a dozen scientific papers and multiple patents.

After 4 years of reconnaissance expeditions, testing and many design iterations, on September 8 2018 the world’s first ocean cleanup system was launched from San Francisco, soon after followed by deployment inside the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

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