When he finished high school, Michael Arens had dreams of ridding the oceans of plastic pollution and sketches in a notebook of a device that he hoped could accomplish the task.
Clean Earth Rovers' autonomous rover, which clears debris from coastal waterways such as marinas.
While their initial plans were dashed, they conducted "customer discovery" through the pre-accelerator process which helped them confirm that a market did exist for trash cleanup closer to the shore by working with businesses and municipalities.
"David kind of led that process and validated that, yeah, this is a smart pivot with an actual, feasible business model," Arens said. "The pollution response and remediation markets out there are ginormous. We think that the biggest need is on those coastlines."
With a better business plan in place, Arens needed someone with technical expertise to create the rover he envisioned.
Featured image at top: Clean Earth Rovers' DataPod, which can monitor water quality, and autonomous rover. Photos/Clean Earth Rovers
