Equipped with the vision of a child inventor, a Little Inventors maker applies their creative talents and industry experience to infuse life into the child's ingenious, unique idea. Meet one such maker, Anton Steenken!

In 2023, we delivered the Climate Champions challenge to children in Chile. In what would be the second iteration of the challenge, Climate Champions asked young inventors to create an invention to save our planet.

Partnering with iCubo UDD, one of the few academic centres in the world focused on developing innovation and an interdisciplinary approach, we were ecstatic to extend the reach of Climate Champions.

Three Chilean schools, Colegio Pioneros Costa, Colegio Pioneros, and Escuela Balneario Cachagua took on the challenge, with six spectacular ideas from across the schools being brought to life.

Anton joined the force as a talented, experienced maker to bring three winning ideas from the project to life.

Residing in Hamburg, Germany, he specialises in CAD (computer-aided-design) and 3D animation.

Of tapping into his creative zone, Anton says: "Getting a hot coffee, turning on some music and just flow into the process of creating is one of my favorite things in life."

He is the CEO at Albus Vision. Albus Vision concentrates on the areas of product development and prototyping with a particular focus on start-ups and innovation. Anton and his team help innovators make their product idea a reality.

As such, Anton was tasked with realising the invention ideas of challenge winners Amalia, age 8, Mila, age 10, and Blanca, age 10.

As is customary at Little Inventors, he chatted to the winners and delved into their inventions, so that each one that was still just an idea could move towards its final form.

Sharing his progress so far and gathering feedback on everything from the functional to the aesthetic aspects of the inventions, Anton got to work envisioning, designing, and prototyping, ultimately breathing life into all three ideas via animation.

Mila, Blanca, and Amalia created their inventions to benefit and serve a specific realm of the natural world. Depicting exactly how each invention would work in the real-world environments they were designed for, Anton transplanted them into a forest, ocean, and sky respectively, illustrating just how the ideas would help save the planet.

This invention uses solar power to provide even more environmental benefits. Sustainably fuelled, Anto que no contamina moves to the site of a whirlwind and absorbs it, thereby removing the potential for destruction.

Mila’s invention functions as a forest saviour. Red de fuerza para lo bosques emits a forcefield when it detects that trees are at risk of being cut down. With security at the forefront of this idea, the protective shield must be deactivated by an authoritative hand.

With a robot at the helm, Submarino 2.0 utilises AI to enable this submarine to coast through our oceans removing waste. Not satisfied with creating a cleaner ocean, the helpful vessel also helps out animals and fish that might be in danger.

Thank you so much Anton for your amazing work on Climate Champions Chile! and for sharing our tenacity in taking children’s ideas seriously!