The Ozone Girl - Sara Naseri' story

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1 SCENARIO 0 4 : 2 0 1 2 PLUS: Ulrich Beck: Visions for a new Europe / Wildcards & Risks / Social trends / Robot cars / Megaproject in Burma / Understanding Co-creation / Dissection: Rabbits / Behavioural patterns / Authenticity & the tactically true / Science & Technology / Future Past: Postcards from the other side / Tech talk / Thinking caps / Future gold / New York 04:2012 UK £ 8 DKK 125 €12 THE OZONE GIRL At 16, Sara Naseri had an idea that might change the world. Now, five years later, she travels around the world as CEO of her own company. Read her story about creative talent, ambitions and the will to aim for the top as global entrepreneur.

description

This is the story of how Sara at age 16, invented a chemical compound that could potentially absorb 99,99% of all UV-radiation - making it able to prevent fully against skin cancer.

Transcript of The Ozone Girl - Sara Naseri' story

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PLUS: Ulrich Beck: Visions for a new Europe / Wildcards & Risks / Social trends / Robot cars / Megaproject in Burma / Understanding Co-creation / Dissection: Rabbits / Behavioural patterns / Authenticity & the tactically true / Science & Technology / Future Past: Postcards from the other side / Tech talk / Thinking caps / Future gold / New York

0 4 : 2 0 1 2

UK £ 8 DKK 125 €12

T H E O Z O N E G I R L At 16, Sara Naseri had an idea that might change the world.

Now, five years later, she travels around the world as CEO of her own company. Read her story about creative talent, ambitions and the will

to aim for the top as global entrepreneur.

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cONTENT

13 THEy caLLEd HER THE OZONE GIRL

At 16, Sara Naseri got an idea that may

change the world. An idea so simple that

you think, why hasn’t this been done long

ago? And because she got another good

idea that made it possible to realise the

first one, she now works with scientists

and travels all over the world as CEO of

her own company. Read the story about

creative talent, ambitions, and the will to

reach the top as a global entrepreneur.

24 ULRIcH BEcK: VISIONS FOR a NEw EUROPE

The fear of a European catastrophe

has given birth to a political monster:

a German Europe! Yet how should a

new model for a European Union of

Democracies look, asks professor of

sociology Ulrich Beck in this essay

where he himself provides the answer

in a form of vision for the future.

28 MEGaPROjEcT IN BURMa

A gigantic construction project in

southern Burma resurrects old dreams

about rapid access to markets in Thailand

and China. The project is expected to

reduce transport times of oil and goods

to China with up to 12 days. The project is

at once a grand idea about transportation

and free trade and an event with

substantial consequences for the

environment and the local community.

Read about US$ 58 billion project.

24

28

13

38

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I N N O v A t I O N

w

When she was 16, Sara Naseri had an idea that could change the world. Because she had a second idea that made it possible to bring the first one to fruition, she now works with scientists and travels around

the world as the CEO of her own company. Read her story about creative talent, ambitions and the persistence to get to the top as a global entrepreneur.

hen she was 16, Sara Naseri had an idea that might well change the world.

Because she also had a second idea that made it possible to actually implement

the first one, she now works with a range of professors around the world. In the meantime,

she has turned 21 and gone from being a high school student to travelling around the

world as the CEO of her own company, which pundits predicted has excellent

opportuniti es for a commercial breakthrough.

Her original idea is so simple that you’d probably wonder why it hadn’t been done

long before, or whether it can really be true that nobody had thought of this before?

The idea is simply to put ozone into a lotion, so you can form your own personal ozone

layer on your body. This ozone layer can protects you against UV rays from the sun, and

can supplement or replace the enormous ozone layer high above our heads in the

stratosphere. This, unfortunately, has been worn thin or eaten through in many places,

and as a result millions of people are exposed to heightened risk of sunlight-related

damage.

“I got the idea with my then-schoolmate Emilie Kjeldsen, who is now my business

partner,” says Sara, who throughout my interview with her makes it clear that they are

and always have been two about the development and realisation of their shared invention.

They called herTHE OZONE

GIRL By Morten Grønborg

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THE FIRST GOOd IdEa

I talk with Sara several times on Skype. She is in Silicon Valley, I

in Copenhagen. I ask her to tell her story from the beginning. We

are back in October 2008, to her high school days in Denmark,

when the two students dreamed of studying medicine after

graduat ing. Their hope was one day to be able to cure skin cancer.

They set themselves a more realistic (if still ambitious) goal – to

study how existing sunscreens could be improved to provide better

protection against cancer. This was done before, during and after

physics lessons at school.

“Back then, we spoke with a number of local pharmacies,

bought a bunch of sunscreens and went nerdy with tests all the

time. It was creative, and we

built the glass frames for the tests

ourselves,” Sara tells me.

However, after a number of

tests, it became clear to the two

girls that it simply wasn’t possible

to improve existing sunscreens.

The chemical grids of metal

oxides that traditional sunscreen

is made of cannot be made tighter.

Alternative thinking was re-

quired, and the idea of adding

ozone thus came into being:

“We thought that when there’s

a lack of ozone in the ozone layer

above us, then it should be

possib le to bring the ozone down

to the ground and create a

person al ozone layer on the skin. It was as simple as that.”

The girls decided to take part in Science Cup, an annual Danish

entrepreneurial contest for students in secondary education. They

had about six months to get their idea ready for the regional finals.

Their goal was to win and go through to the national finals.

There was just one problem: ozone is very corrosive. It is a

so-called aggressive oxidiser, which in larger quantities would

attack mucous membranes. This means you can’t simply add

ozone to sunscreens.

At about this time, good idea number 2 came along.

THE SEcONd GOOd IdEa

If ozone is too dangerous to add directly to the sunscreen, it should

be possible to encapsulate it in something, the girls thought. But

what?

The answer came during a chemistry lesson in which Sara saw

an image of a so-called buckyball (see fact box). This is a naturally

occurring molecule resembling a soccer ball that scientists have

managed to reproduce artificially.

“When we saw the buckyball, we got very excited and started

googling. It should be possible to put ozone into one of them, we

thought – a bit like opening one of the panels of a soccer ball and

closing it again. This meant the ball could serve as a container,”

Sara tells me.

The girls started researching

who in the world knew anything

about buckyballs. Among those

they contacted were chemists at

Aarhus University, and in a

professor’s office they saw a

poster of a buckyball , on which

the Nobel laureate Harold Kroto

(see fact box) also appeared.

“We saw his name and

thought: Hey, we’ve got to talk

to him! So we went hunting for

his phone number and called

him at his office in Florida, but

only got his secretary. I called

EVERY day for many weeks, a

couple of months I think, and I

ended up becoming good friends with the secretary. But then one

day, which I figured would be one of the usual no-luck days, he

suddenly WAS on the line,” Sara grins. Her English is good,

because she and her family lived in England for some time as a

child.

Kroto turned out to be enthusiastic about and impressed by the

idea of using buckyballs commercially in connection with ozone.

He put the girls in touch with other leading scientists in the field.

SCENARIO: Did you tell him that you were 16 and a high school

student?

“We thought that when there’s a lack of ozone in the ozone layer above us,

then it should be possible to bring the ozone down to the ground and create a personal ozone layer on the skin. It was as

simple as that.”

THE BUCKEYBALL – THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL MOLECULE The buckyball is a carbon molecule consisting of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a globular grid pattern. Since the ball is fully symmetric and simple in shape, it is often called the world’s most beautiful molecule. It has the formula C60, and its official name is Buckminsterfullerene, since its appearance is similar to the American architect Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes. Its similarity to a soccer ball is also often noted. It was a sensation when scientists in 1985 identified the buckyball, because up to then it was thought that graphite and diamond were the only types of carbon to exist. The discovery has created a new branch of chemistry that in the long run may open the opportunity for creating entirely new structures and materials. A buckyball is just 1.03 nanometres in diameter.

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S A m f u N d

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Sara: “Um, I can’t quite remember. I guess I did mention what I

did, but I’m not certain that he took much note of it. He was just

enthusiastic and responsive.”

THE HELPER

Encouraged by the conversation with Harold Kroto, the girls

worked on the their project for the next six months leading up to

Science Cup, which was scheduled for April 2009. Among other

things, they spent a lot of time at Aarhus University making

calculations and verifying their idea about using buckyballs as

containers. They also tested Harold Kroto’s method of making

buckyballs synthetically.

“We worked very hard, did

things that nobody else in the

contest did, and found sponsors.

And then we got in contact with

Østjysk Innovation (an organi-

sation that invests in the

commerci al development of

innovat ive high-tech business

ideas; ed.), which showed great

interest,” explained Sara.

“Well, right from our very

first meeting they said they

would like to collaborate to look

closer at our idea and possibly

invest in our project. This is the

first time we realised that there

might be money in our idea. We

went back to school and were

quite out of our minds. To think, a grownup man was sitting

there offering us money! At this point I think our school realised

that we needed help from adults.”

Pia Møller Jensen, the girls’ physics teacher, stepped in, and over

the following years she took on a key role as sparring partner,

advisor and confidante.

“She has been with us on almost all our trips around the world.

She has been much more than a physics teacher to us – an

indispensab le friend who has always looked out for us and

support ed us in all our ups and downs,” Sara tells me.

adVERSITy

A short time before the Science Cup on 14 April 2008, the girls

discovered that “there was something called patents.” They also

discovered that it was too late to apply for a patent if they had

already presented their idea publically in a competition. This

placed their participation under pressure, because their appetite

for developing their idea into a real business had been whetted after

the interest shown by Østjysk Innovation.

“We wondered what we should do. And then we got working!

We quickly realised that it costs a

lot of money to apply for and

write a professional patent, but

we got in touch with the Inspicos

patent bureau in Copenhagen,

and they were willing to help us.

In fact, the bureau chose to

sponsor us, and we finished our

application the evening before

the Science Cup.”

When the time for Science Cup

rolled around, but there was still

no news about the patent they

had applied for.

“We didn’t know what to do,”

Sara says. But just 15 minutes

before the deadline, their phone

rang. The patent application had

been delivered, so they could now participate safely.

The presentation went exceedingly well, their contribution to the

competition seemed super i or to everyone else’s, and most people –

including the other contestants – were sure that the Ozone project

would go through from the regionals to the national finals.

Yet, surprisingly, their project did not get through the Cup

selection process.

“The judges simply didn’t believe that we had written the

“The invention is a ‘platform technology’,

which in practice means that the use of ozone in

buckyballs might not only apply to but also to

a wide range of other products.”

OZONE Ozone is a stratospheric gas (O3) that offers protection against ultraviolet radiation. The industry uses ozone as a powerful oxidiser. Ozone is chemically unstable, and its presence in even minute quantities of foreign substances makes it extremely explosive. It is also highly corrosive.

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report and had the idea on our own. The project was far above

the level they expected from high school 2nd-graders, and they

would not consider it, they said. That came as a huge shock to us,

and we cried all the way home. Not because we didn’t win, but

because we had been unfairly treated,” Sara tells me.

SCENARIO: How do you go on after such a disappointment? After

all, at the time you were just 17 and had already spent oceans of time

on your project. Wasn’t it tempting to just give it all up and live like

your peers?

Sara: “No, that wasn’t tempting for very long. We chose to go

on. We reminded ourselves that the goal was our goal – bringing

our idea to fruition, not winning a contest. We also chose not to

get back at the judges in the

media and suchlike. Instead, we

chose to tell the positive story

about our idea and our patent.”

Business

The media loved the ozone girls,

as they were quickly dubbed in

the local press. At the time of

their exams in the summer of

2009, they were also participating

in interviews and talk shows,

even though they really didn’t

have the time – their school-

work also had to be attended to.

“Luckily, we had our faithful

teacher. She let us take a written

physics exam in the morning

from 5 to 9, rather than from 9 to 1 pm with the other students.”

Sara smiles at this unusual alliance between the teacher and her

two students.

This pattern continued in the following years when the concept

and later the company BUCKY’o’ZUN was developed. The girls’

will to reach their goal remained intact, as was their teacher’s

willing ness to help them, and together they visited professors in

Great Britain and New York to develop their ideas still further. In

New York, Yale professor Jim Cross got so enthusiastic about the

idea that he set “a lot of heavy calculations and simulations” rolling

on his own accord, resulting in a so-called proof of principle; a

theoreti cal verification of the idea, which took the ozone girls a

new, big step further. They were now able to enter the commercial

phase, with the aim of developing a real product. At the same

time, their high school diplomas needed to be landed.

Among other things, the commercial phase took the girls on a

trip around Europe to meet several of the world’s biggest chemical

corporations. As part of their patent application, they were forced

to consider in what other fields their idea of encapsulating ozone

in buckyballs might be used, and the business idea was extended

from just sunscreen to a lot of other fields.

As Sara expressed it, the invention is a ‘platform technology’,

which in practice means that the

use of ozone in buckyballs might

not only apply to skin lotions,

but also to a wide range of other

products. For instance, it is of

interest to manufacturers of

auto motive paints, wood

preserva tives, and any other

companies whose products are

exposed to UV rays. It is also

possible that it might be used in

coatings for satellites.

Breakthrough

The girls finished high school

and got accepted for medical

school, but they immediately

delayed beginning their actual

studies, and in 2011 they made their first real commercial break-

through. For one thing, they received support from a Danish

bank’s entrepreneurial fund, and for another, their start-up

compan y BUCKY’o’ZUN received an investment of € 240,000

from Seed Capital – a venture fund investing in high-tech start-

ups. This meant that Seed Capital now owned a percentage of the

company as a minority stockholder, but also that the company has

been officially evaluated for the first time. As another feather in

their caps, the two girls also won Venture Cup’s idea competition

in the category Life Science & Medtech at roughly the same time.

HAROLD KROTO Professor Harold Kroto (1939) is a British chemist. In 1996, he and Robert Curl and Richard Smalley received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the buckyball. The three scientists discovered it in their hunt for something else – the cause of a particular type of radiation from space that science couldn’t offer any immediate explanation for. It was not least through contacts to leading professors, achieved through conversations with Harold Kroto, that Sara Naseri and Emilie Kjeldsen were able go on working with their idea of putting ozone into buckyballs. Today, Harold Kroto is professor of chemistry at Florida State University.

“Kroto turned out to be enthusiastic about and impressed by the idea of

using buckyballs commercially in connection with ozone. He put the girls in touch

with other leading scientists in the field.”

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Venture Cup is a national competition for ideas and research with

business potential, organised by Danish universities.

“This victory meant that we finally got over the loss of confiden ce

that the lack of recognition from Science Cup gave us. This was a

competition for university students, something we still hadn’t really

got as far as. The investment meant that we could begin getting

paid for our work and that we could go to Japan to start a test

production,” Sara tells me.

The collaboration with the Japanese scientists took time taking

form – the negotiations took eight months. In the meantime, Sara

and Emilie armed themselves on the business front by establishing

an advisory board. They also won the Intel Global Challenge, an

innovation contest held by UC

Berkeley, and at the time of

writing they have successfully

ended the first phase of

develop ing their production

method, working with the

Japan ese scientists. Sara is

current ly in the US to talk to

more chemical corporations,

and the two entrepreneurs are

simultaneously negotiating with

Japan about phase two in devel-

oping the production method.

Future

During our conversations, Sara

mentions that she and Emilie

were already offered “a double-digit million sum” for their

inven tion, at the beginning of the commercial phase.

“Among the chemical corporations we spoke with, one was

very interested, and it was a big decision to say no to them. Both

of us dreamed about beginning medical school, and it was tempt-

ing to return to a more normal life. Howeeeever…” Sara grins

and lets me understand that it was more important to follow

through with the project and see the idea made real than to be

bought out and lose their influence.

“Something else is that this could become a billion-dollar business,

because our product can be used in many big markets as different

as cosmetics, textiles, wood and plastics. On the other hand, it might

turn out to be worth nothing if we can’t overcome all the technical

complications. We are taking a chance and waiting. In any case, we

have decided that this project isn’t about money. If it is about

money, we may end as losers if we fail to commercialise the idea.

We have therefore decided that it is about experiencing and

learning something. In this way we are winners, no matter the out-

come. This is what I get up for every morning,” Sara makes it clear.

SCENARIO: But you of course do everything you can to make your

business succeed. What barriers lie ahead?

Sara: “Oh, there are a lot. One of the technical barriers is finding

a scalable way to close the buckyball, in a way that we can use

industri ally and on a large scale.

It’s not just a small chemistry

experi ment, but something that

requires a lot of work. This is

what we’re working on with the

Japanese. And then there’s the

business side of things. Can we

find a commercial partner that

is strong enough and can shoulder

the task of production? That

will also be crucial.”

SCENARIO: Who might such a

partner be?

Sara: ”It could be something

like a chemical corporation, but it

could also be a large venture

capital partner. The big challenge

is to find a partner with the technical capacity.”

SCENARIO: And when do you expect that these barriers will be passed?

Sara: ”I hope that we find our partner here in 2012, but it could

take a year. Once we have found our chosen partner, our time-

frame is six months when it comes to the production method.

Then we should have a final product at hand.”

FINaL PROdUcT

At first, the final product will be a kind of powder that can be

used in industry, for things like mixing into car coatings, paints

and wood preservatives, Sara tells me.

“During our conversations, Sara mentions that she

and Emilie were already offered ‘a double-digit

million sum’ for their invention, at the beginning of the

commercial phase.”

ADMITTED TO SINGULARITY UNIVERSITYShortly before this issue ws finalised, Sara Naseri was told that she had been admitted to the prestigious Singularity University in Silicon Valley, for the summer of 2012. This university, which offers shorter courses as a supplement to education at other universities, has a stated aim to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.” However, Sara Naseri’s long-term plan is to continue studying medicine.

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SCENARIO: Along the way you have changed your focus and you are

now initially aiming your product at industry. When can you achieve

your original dream about a personal ozone layer for the benefit of

mankind?

Sara: “It is still our dream to make ozone layers on the skin, but

there simply are more factors to take into account when making

products for the skin and body, compared to things like paint for

cars. There are more technical de-

tails and possible side effects to

test. We have set aside two years

just for the toxicological and

clini cal tests. We hope to have a

product on the market by 2014 or

2015.”

SCENARIO: And what about

your personal dreams about studying

medicine?

”We hope to begin September

this year at the University of

Copen hagen. But I can’t promise

that we won’t postpone it again,

ha, ha. We have done that a few

times.”

SCENARIO: After all this, if you

were to pass a piece of good advice on to other entrepreneurs, what

would it be?

“I would say to all young people dreaming about changing the

world that they shouldn’t think that they need to be fully-fledged

chemists or physicists to do so. Don’t wait until you’re clever

enough! It is a strength that as a young person you aren’t limited

by your own lack of knowledge. When you only know a little

about a field, you’re normally better at thinking out of the box

because you don’t immediately become aware of the barriers.

Whereas the professors see all the hindrances. They say right

away that ‘This can’t be done’. We say: ‘Can’t it?’ And then we

try. Just jump right into it.”

SCENARIO: And finally: Where does your own powerful drive and

focus come from?

“I guess I have a competitive gene. For several years, I was an

active competition swimmer and swam 6–7 days a week. But it is

also a matter of my upbringing. My parents have always urged

me to do my very best, but at the same time I have been given a lot

of freedom to try all the things I wanted; even several things at

once. So I have tried everything from rock climbing over skating,

dancing, handball, tennis, soccer and hockey to playing violin,

recorder, drums, and guitar and singing. This means that I have

been able to express myself within everything I have found

interesting. The energy to do

things comes from enjoying it,

and to me, that has never been a

problem. I commit myself, and

then it becomes fun.”

My couple of hours of conver-

sation with Sara Naseri are over.

I didn’t get to ask all that many

questions, because Sara doesn’t

need that sort of thing to provide

answers. She talks a lot, and at

length. With certainty and

passi on. In a clear Danish regional

accent, with added American

phrases and expressions when

her vocabulary runs out of

chemi cal and business terms. She

is a person with a lot of energy and a many-faceted talent who

early on saw where to make an effort once the opportunity showed

itself. She is also the product of two immigrants from Iran who

had a daughter, but this angle is superfluous here – just like the

story about ‘the female entrepreneur’ or the model student who

graduated high school with top grades (“I was a real nerd who

loved going to school”).

No, the story is about persistence and talent, and that sort of

thing is universal. Even if the protagonist in this particular story

is Sara Naseri.

The local media in Denmark called her the ozone girl. In the

meantime, she has become a grown woman with experiences

from a life as an entrepreneur; now passed on.

The next chapter in the story will be written in the years to

come. My guess is that no-one will miss out on it. We will get to

hear more about this. ¢

“This could become a billion-dollar business,

because our product can be used in many big markets as

different as cosmetics, textiles, wood and plastics. On the other hand, it might turn out to be worth nothing if

we can’t overcome all the technical complications.”

Sara Naseri with Emilie Kjeldsen during the first tests of sunblock back in 2008. Today, Emilie Kjeldsen is COO in their joint company

BUCKY’o’ZUN and – with Sara – is behind the idea of a ‘personal ozone layer’, created by capturing ozone in buckyballs. Private photo.

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