A 19-year-old Chinese girl developed a natural method of degrading plastics and her net worth soared. What happened next?

Do you still remember what you were doing when you were nineteen years old? Perhaps some of the nineteen-year-old children now are still in college for further studies, while some have left the society early to work hard. When she was 19 years old, this Chinese-American girl developed a natural way to degrade plastics. Her net worth once soared to nearly 50 million US dollars. Even Microsoft founder Bill Gates wanted to hear her experience and praise her.

This Chinese girl is Yao Jiayun. She was selected by the organization as one of the top 20 teenagers in the world when she just entered college.

1: The wonderful fate of contacting science

Yao Jiayun was born in Panyang City, China. Before the age of eleven, she received the same education as her peers. In an eighth-grade science class, an experiment completely opened her door to exploration and love for science.

The teacher put an egg into a container filled with vinegar. After a while, the hard shell outside the egg turned soft and transparent, which aroused Yao Jiayun's curiosity and also It deeply inspired Yao Jiayun’s exploration in her childhood.

Later Yao Jiayun immigrated to Vancouver, Canada with her parents. Yao Jiayun, who had just arrived in a foreign country, was not familiar with the local environment and people, so she was only accompanied by her continuous study and exploration of science.

While studying in Vancouver, Yao Jiayun participated in an environmental-themed camping trip. It was this camping trip that completely exposed Yao Jiayun to environmental science, so that she later devoted herself to this research. go. That event was mainly about the practice of waste classification and processing.

Not long after the event started, Yao Jiayun saw a scene that shocked her. When they passed an electronic waste recycling station, thousands of tons of garbage piled into mountains came into their eyes. The hill made of plastic garbage was like a beast. Yao Jiayun was deeply shocked, and she even made one that night. Nightmares about garbage.

When Yao Jiayun, who was still at the garbage dump at the time, asked out of curiosity how the plastic waste should be destroyed, the local staff expressed regret because the plastics were hazardous waste and could not be disposed of by ordinary methods. , if left to nature, the plasticizers contained in it will not only pollute the soil and water sources, but will not be allowed to completely degrade naturally even after 5,000 years. This sentence became a seed deeply rooted in the heart of young Yao Jiayun.

Second, devote yourself to studying how to reduce one thing to another

Yao Jiayun has been thinking about a problem that night. Since plastic can be created, there must be something that can perfect it. It degraded, so she decided to devote herself wholeheartedly to research, determined to make a contribution to the cause of environmental protection.

In the days that followed, Yao Jiayun searched for countless documents, carefully recorded important contents, and finally decided to use microorganisms as the best way to degrade plastics and conducted in-depth research. Unfortunately, Yao Jiayun was still just a student at the time, and she did not have sufficient funds and technology to support her to continue effective research. So Yao Jiayun wrote her thoughts and research into a paper and submitted it to Columbia University.

This paper was seen by Dr. Lindsay, who was at Columbia University at the time. The doctor was very optimistic about the method of degrading plastics provided in this article, so he took the initiative to invite Yao Jiayun to join his laboratory. Suddenly, Yao Jiayun felt that the road ahead became brighter, and research could turn from theory to practice, and officially began to be implemented.

After solving the financial and technical problems, what awaits Yao Jiayun next is endless experimental research. They began to conduct experimental screening of all elements that could degrade plastics. The time in the laboratory occupied all of their lives, but Yao Jiayun still continued to conduct research experiments happily. After extensive research and testing, the experiment seemed to have encountered a bottleneck.

After numerous failed experiments, Yao Jiayun decided to use the oldest and most complex method, using the troubleshooting method to conduct experiments on the experimental subjects one by one to finally get the answer. Hard work pays off, and after countless failures, Yao Jiayun finally found a way to effectively degrade plastics. That is to use bacteria to degrade plastics.

This discovery instantly attracted the attention of global health organizations. The degradation of plastics has always been a problem around the world, but now it has been solved by a 19-year-old girl. This is incredible. of. This research result successfully won the championship in the Canadian local biological challenge.

What followed was the attention of countless media and institutions. TED, the world's largest speaking organization, invited them to give speeches on their research process and path to success. Even Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Google founder Riley Page wants to learn about their success.

The successful discovery of this research result instantly made Yao Jiayun's net worth soar to nearly 50 million US dollars. Countless biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies want to cooperate with her, use and develop their research results, and The technology of microbial degradation of plastics can be applied in real life to better improve people's lives.

However, Yao Jiayun believes that her research results have many shortcomings. They are only supported by theoretical knowledge and experimental results, and the depth of her knowledge is far from enough.

So Yao Jiayun rejected the invitations from these companies, returned to campus and laboratories, and devoted herself to research.

We also need to have an innovative spirit like Yao Jiayun in our lives. By observing the details of life, she constantly thinks and researches and discovers the use of bacteria, a common thing, to solve problems that have always troubled people. Innovation is the key to the development of contemporary society. When we encounter difficulties in life, if we use innovation skillfully and think carefully, we will always find a suitable solution.

Looking at it from another perspective, when Yao Jiayun's experiment encountered a bottleneck, she did not choose to take advantage of opportunities, but chose the stupidest troubleshooting method. She persisted in searching and finally succeeded. Sometimes life will not be smooth sailing. Only by constantly fighting against it will one day see a bright future.

Young people are the most powerful creators and influencers of this era. When global problems plague mankind, young people can bravely stand up and face them, using their full blood and passion to influence people. world. If young people are strong, the country will be strong; if young people are rich, the country will be rich. Young people are the most powerful creators of this era, and they are also the loudest voice of this era.