This week two boys from Eton College were named Runners-up at the Earth Prize award ceremony.
Team Pebble, whose youngest member is 14 years old and consists of boys Orlando W and Koza K, pioneered a platform that pools computer power by using idle consumer graphic cards. They competed against 980 school teams across 154 countries and territories to become one of two Eton College teams among the 10 finalists and Runners-up of the Earth Prize 2024.
Pauline Herbommez, Director of Eton College’s Environment Education, said, “I am of course incredibly proud to see our team Pebble in the Runners-up, but I am also grateful to all the Earth Prize students over the years who have worked hard to make a difference in a world they wish to see thrive.”
The Earth Prize is the world’s largest environmental sustainability competition for teenage students across the globe. The competition recognises and rewards students and schools with the most innovative and planet saving ideas. Now in its third year, this global competition has attracted young minds aged 13-19 from over 2,000 schools and has become a beacon for environmental innovation and youth empowerment.
Team Pebble has pioneered a platform that pools computer power to reduce overall consumption. Globally, over 120 million consumer graphics cards (GPUs) lie idle, despite their high carbon footprint in manufacturing and rare earth element content. The team hopes to pool these underutilized GPUs into a network. Their proposal would allow contributors to rent out their computers to optimise resource usage, reduce carbon usage and rare earth metal consumption whilst empowering innovation and environmental sustainability in the tech industry. Ultimately, this could save 8.76 billion kWh annually, which is equivalent to powering 810,000 average USA homes for a year.
Orlando W and Koza K, of Team Pebble, said: “We are both super excited to have come Runner-up, which presents an amazing opportunity, enabling us to develop our product further and have as great an impact as possible. Additionally, a huge thank you to Mlle Herbommez for supporting us through the process.”
Pauline Herbommez added that, “Such competitions help young people build the resilience we need to face the hardship. I hope the Runners-up and all the teams continue to work on the projects they believe can make a difference. If they believe it, they must make the world believe it too.”
Boys from Eton College have been participating in the competition since 2021 and this is the second time when Eton’s boys have made the final Top 10. This achievement is testament to the commitment that Eton’s boys have towards stewarding the environment for generations to come. Through Eton’s Environment Society, boys are encouraged to challenge, scrutinise and innovate in order to drive change that resonates globally.
