Interview: Cesar Harada

In 2010, when the BP Oil Spill was pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, Cesar Harada left MIT and moved to the Gulf to develop an open source robot to clean up oil spills.

Rather than patent the design and keep it closed, he opened the project so that others could build, test and improve it. The work grew into a family of low cost, wind powered craft designed to sail across the surface of a spill and gather oil without adding more pollution of its own.

His approach is a clear example of the kind of research and development Students Beyond Grades follows: technical skill aimed squarely at a public problem, shared openly so that it can spread.