Pebble’s team are a UK-based duo, Orlando and Koza, who are keen to use their interest in areas of computer science, mathematics and physics to improve environmental resourcefulness.

After meeting at an internal school competition and taking home the first and second prizes, the two connected and started to speak about The Earth Prize. Given that they both already had some partially-formed ideas to work with, and Orlando had applied to The Earth Prize before, they got to work quickly to find an idea they could co-develop as a submission.

They initially began working on a hardware concept, but quickly decided that this would be too costly and complex to construct. Pivoting instead into the realm of software development ‘for good’, one idea that particularly stuck out was a partially-formed project that Orlando had been dreaming up: pooling computers together to reduce energy consumption. After considering how scalable and impactful this solution could be, they decided to focus their efforts on this concept. Not only does this idea lead with environmental resourcefulness, it also has the potential to reduce carbon emissions and rare metal consumption, as well as save billions of kWh annually.

Although submissions to The Earth Prize can be typically focused on a physical product, team Pebble didn’t let this stop them. “It’s not a traditional application to The Earth Prize as it’s a purely software-based solution, a tech product. But I thought, this could be cool, it has great potential scalability”, explained Orlando.

Team Pebble is dedicated to bringing their product to market, no matter the final results of The Earth Prize. Their name, Pebble, suggests smoothness and ease of use, which is exactly what they plan to deliver through their machine-learning-fuelled software solution.

When reflecting on The Earth Prize competition, Pebble have most enjoyed the process of creating a 90-second video for their project now that they’re in the implementation stage. When asked what advice they would give to future applicants, they simply said: “Absolutely go for it! Just start with an idea, and develop it from there.”