Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur, best known as the Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. His interest in plastic pollution began in 2011 after a scuba diving experience in Greece revealed more plastic than fish. This observation led him to make ocean plastic pollution the subject of a high school project, where he explored the challenges of cleanup and later conceived the idea of a passive plastic catchment system. He presented this concept at a TEDx talk in Delft in 2012.