Manuel Nunes from Piauí wins Nobel Prize for Young Sciences with innovative project

Just 16 years old, Piauí youngster Manuel José Nunes Neto has won the 2024 Stockholm Youth Water Prize, a prestigious international competition promoted by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and often referred to as the Nobel Prize of young science. Their project, titled Aquatic Rover, aims to improve the way we monitor the health of water bodies, reducing the need for field technicians and reducing exposure to polluted areas.

Manuel competed in the Stockholm Young Water Prize, standing out among young scientists from around the world. The Aquatic Rover has proven its effectiveness in measuring essential data for water quality management, demonstrating its potential to make a positive impact on a global scale.

Piauí Governor Rafael Fontelles expressed his joy at the young man’s achievement on his social networks, highlighting Brazilian innovation and emerging scientific talent. “With his project ‘Autonomous water vehicle for water quality monitoring: a low-cost portable instrument’, Manuel has brought pride to Brazil, and especially to Piauí,” said the governor.

The Aquatic Rover is a portable, low-cost, autonomous vehicle capable of navigating diverse aquatic environments, collecting important water quality data such as pH, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. The collected data is sent to a server, where it can be analyzed on a computer or mobile phone.

In addition to facilitating water quality monitoring, the MANUEL project offers a practical solution for communities, researchers and organizations working in water resource conservation and management, and democratizing access to environmental information in remote or hard-to-reach areas.