UK schoolboys catch Nasa’s attention with new climate technology used to save coral reefs

Two British schoolboys whose new climate technology had Nasa knocking on their door have described the “overwhelming” feeling of seeing their invention used around the world.

Thenuk Rodrigo and Simba Shi, both 17-year-old Eton College pupils, co-founded environmental start-up ReefSound last summer, aiming to use AI analysis of sound recordings to transform coral reef protection methods.

Little over a year later, the start-up attracted the interest of Nasa officials and is being drafted in by conservation organisations for use in seven countries.

Speaking to The Independent, Thenuk and Simba recalled the “really incredible” moment an employee at Space Center Houston approached the team – which also includes 17-year-old Chinese student Bonnie Liu – to ask to license the remote-controlled underwater vehicle (ROV), which navigates and diagnoses coral reefs.

Although Space Center Houston did not follow through with the deal, Thenuk said it was “really incredible to see some sort of interest from the first place”.

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Working late into the night after school, the team produced an AI model to assess sound recordings from the coral reef, claiming to be 60 per cent cheaper and five times more efficient than current manual diver surveys and satellite image analysis methods.

Their technology has taken recordings this year for coral preservation organisations in Malaysia and the Mexican island of Cozumel, and discussions are underway with organisations from the US, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Maldives to use the products.

“It’s really motivating to see,” Thenuk said. “I can’t even explain how exciting and motivating it is to see the technology you spend a year developing helping people, countries around the world, and benefiting people.

“It’s just such an incredible feeling. We want to see ReefSound being used in every coral reef around the world,” he added.

Thenuk and Simba first began discussing coral reefs when they were neighbours in their college dormitory.

Simba recalled: ”I remember when we kind of started doing projects, I literally just went into Thenuk’s room and we talked about it, and we were like, this is pretty cool.

“I love how close-knit our community is, how much we can do working together.”

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Their passion for addressing coral reef protection began when they read books and watched documentaries on the topic, and began to understand “how big the scale of the problem is”, Simba said.

After learning that healthy coral reefs sound different from degraded ones, Thenuk and Simba decided that using an AI model would save huge amounts of time and money for coral reef protection organisations.

The ReefSound team developed an AI model which analyses the health of a coral reef with 99.4 per cent accuracy.

With a potentially groundbreaking invention under their belt, Thenuk, Simba and Bonnie took their project to a high school stem competition run by Space Center Houston – the Conrad Challenge – and became the first British team to win.

On the back of their success, the British year-13 students have won $298,000 (?227,000) worth of scholarships from US universities, but are yet to decide on their futures.

Thenuk said it was an “incredible opportunity” and “really overwhelming” to see how far the start-up took them in just over a year. And their ambition is only growing.

“We want to have a product that’s good enough to be used by governments on a large scale. So, in the next few months, we do hope to start working with governments. I think that would be incredible,” Thenuk said.

With both Thenuk and Simba both studying for A-levels in maths, further maths, physics and computer science, “a lot of hard work” was needed to balance innovation with education.

Thenuk added that it is “easy to do” when they see their project helping people around the world.

“It doesn’t actually make it that difficult for us to work every single night on this, when you’re seeing it have the impact right now, when you’re seeing it being used around the world.”

Simba added: “We have a lot of passion for environmental projects, especially using technology. We do this every day, and we’re really excited about the future.”

Thenuk and Simba, who will continue developing ReefSound and trying to implement the technology globally, say their dream is to continue careers in technological and climate innovation.