3M's young scientist of the year walked through his invention that could change how you shop for produce.
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00:00I don't need to communicate with anybody.
00:05The lights are hot, yes?
00:08And tell me, let me see if I get it right, Suresh Subash?
00:15Suresh Subash.
00:16Suresh Subash.
00:17Yeah.
00:18All right, Suresh, Suresh, and I try to remember that, Suresh.
00:28OK.
00:30Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
00:35I'm going to put this on.
00:36Your phone is on mute?
00:39I believe it is.
00:40Let me just put it in airplane mode.
00:43Suresh.
00:44Yep.
00:49All right.
00:50Here we go.
00:55So I can just go whenever I'm ready?
00:57Sure thing.
01:00All right.
01:02Suresh Subash is America's top young scientist.
01:05Thank you for coming by the street today.
01:07Thanks for having me.
01:08So tell me about the invention that
01:10caused you to be the winner.
01:12Yeah, so my invention, it's called Pestiscan.
01:16It's a device that allows people at home
01:18to detect pesticides on their fruits and vegetables,
01:21their produce.
01:22So the idea is the majority of produce items
01:26have pesticide residues on them.
01:28And these residues are harmful to health.
01:31What's worse is they stick around on produce
01:33even after washing.
01:35So if there was a way to detect them,
01:37we could avoid consuming them.
01:39So that's the real reason behind this project.
01:42And along those lines, I built Pestiscan.
01:44Pestiscan is a handheld pesticide residue detector
01:48that works on the basis of spectrophotometry.
01:53One second, I'm going to pull it up.
01:55Yeah.
01:55So the device, it works like this.
01:59So this is the setup.
02:02And the way it works is the physical device
02:06will connect to an iOS app.
02:09And when the two are connected, one second,
02:20so you just launch the app.
02:22And then the two connect over Bluetooth.
02:24So once the app is launched, you simply
02:26tap to scan while pointing at a produce item.
02:29And then in a couple of seconds, the results
02:33come back up on screen.
02:34So the produce, hold it up so they can see it on screen.
02:41So do it this way.
02:42So the fruit is over here.
02:44So you point this device at the fruit here.
02:48And then this device that you have connected to the phone
02:51reads the fruit.
02:52And then you get a message that tells you
02:55whether it has pesticide or not.
02:58All right, so you mentioned that this
03:00is made for household, everyday consumers.
03:04Is it scalable?
03:05Is it scalable so that businesses can use it?
03:09So this particular version is targeted
03:11towards at-home users.
03:13But I'm also working on another prototype.
03:16This is one of my big next plans is
03:18to bring it out to an industrial scale, to scale it up.
03:21That's my next goal from here, to have a larger version that
03:24can be implemented into a store to where
03:27on the industrial side, they can ensure that their produce doesn't
03:31have any pesticide residues to better ensure
03:34safety on the consumer end.
03:36So in your wildest dreams, do you
03:39foresee a device like this showing up at Home Depot or Lowe's?
03:43Or are you like a do-it-yourself inventor,
03:47like name-it-yourself kind of inventor?
03:50So this, I hope for in the future
03:53to commercialize this to where it can get out to people
03:56at a local store, so that way they can have access to it.
04:00So how did you find the business side of the contest?
04:05Because you're an inventor, but you're also
04:07working along with 3M, which is one of the world's biggest
04:10consumer products company.
04:12And the science is great, but at the end of the day,
04:16the device has to work, right?
04:18So how did that process work for you?
04:21So I'm most familiar with the science side,
04:23but I've had some experience with trying to get stuff out.
04:27One of the things about my invention
04:30is when I build these things, they're
04:31always targeted towards people, to where the world would
04:35be interested in.
04:36This would help improve people's safety and health.
04:39So it wasn't too tough for me.
04:42It went pretty smoothly, just getting it out to the people.
04:45So collaboration is a big part of this process
04:49with the science project.
04:50How did you find the collaboration process?
04:54Because scientists, sometimes you're
04:56used to working alone, tinkering with devices by yourself.
04:59But working with 3M, you had to collaborate.
05:01How did you find the process?
05:03So I usually, when I'm working on stuff like this,
05:06I work alone on my own.
05:08But my family does help me a little bit
05:10with getting some stuff set up.
05:12Now, one of the things that happened
05:14was I was working with a mentor, a scientist from 3M, Aditya.
05:18He was great to work with.
05:19And in collaboration with him, I learned quite a bit.
05:23One thing he's done is he's been really helpful.
05:26When I was stuck, getting me unstuck and moving.
05:30But collaboration, it went pretty smoothly,
05:33and I really enjoyed it.
05:34It was really helpful in getting this product
05:36to where it is today.
05:37So I watched one of your videos, and you
05:39are very passionate about using science to solve problems.
05:43So what's the problem that you, what's
05:47the big problem you hope to solve in the future
05:49if somebody doesn't get to it before you?
05:52So besides the general safety side of things,
05:56one of the biggest problems in my mind that needs to be targeted
05:58is climate change.
06:00I want to find a way to help stop climate change.
06:05That's one of my big end goals.
06:08So you won $25,000.
06:10What do you plan to do with the money?
06:12So the first thing I plan to do with it is going to be college.
06:16I'm planning on furthering my education,
06:18so that way from there, I can get
06:20to work on more projects like this.
06:23And I eventually also, I want to also put this
06:25into getting it out to the world,
06:27to where I can help improve people's lives.
06:29All right, great.
06:30Reese Subbas is America's top young scientist.
06:34Thank you for joining us here at The Street.
06:36Thank you for having me.