Mr. Harmon Returns from One Place to Another
Javier Fernandez-Han: Spend One Hour Inspiring Someone
February 13, 2010
Originally published at AshokaTech.
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."
During his portion of this morning's presentation, Javier attributed much of his success as an inventor to Ashok Gadgil (see previous post). Javier explained that he first learned of Gadgil's work at an exhibition sponsored by the Lemelson Foundation. When Javier was nine years old, he and his family met Gadgil at his lab. Gadgil spent an hour explaining the UV Waterworks system to Javier. Javier says that this meeting was what made him realize that he could spend his life creating inventions to improve living conditions for others.
Javier asked a very concrete favor of all of the inventors in the room: spend one hour inspiring someone. "Think not only of investing in inventions, but also of investing in people's lives."
