Salman Shahzad
BS(GEOPHY)
Batch: 2012-2016
Designation: Entrepreneur (BLUEXPRT)
Salman Shahzad is a graduate of Bahria University Karachi Campus with a Bachelor of Science in Geophysics. During his studies, his primary involvement was with the Oil and Gas Industry, but for him something was amiss. He did not agree with the involved practices within the industry especially with fracking. This is the reason why he chose to conduct his research on the environmental risks associated with fracking. A thesis defence later and he was rewarded a maximum GPA grade of 4.
Upon completion of his bachelor, he pursued a Master’s in Environment and Energy Management with a focus on Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. During his studies, he focused primarily on exploring sustainable business practises in the Netherlands and Pakistan. After graduation, to broaden his horizons, he was successfully selected as part of the Erasmus Young Entrepreneur program where on his choosing, he moved temporarily to Slovakia, working with their biggest NGO, Nadacia Pontis. Being unaware of the social entrepreneurial practises within the country, this only added fuel to his already budding curiosity and willingness to learn. After returning to the Netherlands, he managed to setup his own company and is currently independently contracted to an innovation firm in the Netherlands called BlueXPRT. With BlueXPRT, he acquired funding for a Multi-Million Euro European Union based project that spans across the EU and the Caribbean, targeting and tackling plastic waste on a macro, micro and nano scale.
The goal of the project is to develop clean-up strategies to target nano-, micro- and macroplastic pollution in the aquatic ecosystems with testing in the industrial hotspots and at the natural sites, like islands Krk in Croatia, Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, Venice Lagoon in Italy and the river Thames in the UK.
One of the examined solutions, an autonomous robot will be able to collect, distinguish and monitor various plastic litter from beaches and hardly accessible locations as well. Social approach will be applied at the natural sites where local people and tourists will be encouraged to clean marine litter by using a mobile app based on a rewarding system. The end game will be to utilize and recycle the gathered plastic, consequently, to accomplish circularity and have zero waste.
He believes that the approaches used within the project, especially the social technique, could be replicated in his home city of Karachi with its coastline along the Arabian Sea needing development to become a blue economic zone.
We will be covering developments as they are shared. As for now, we wish everyone involved in the project well and give our commendations to Salman on his quest to push forward with sustainable practises.
For further information and updates on the project, we invite you to check out the project website via link below:
To get in touch with Salman directly for queries, you can email him or contact him via LinkedIn:
salman.shahzad@blue-expert.com / Salman Shahzad | LinkedIn
Dated: 6th April 2021.