Graduate student builds equipment to transform desert

Zhang Hao, a second-year graduate student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has been volunteering to turn sand into green for five years. Now, he plans to devote himself to the desert transformation project with his knowledge and innovation.

Zhang, a Henan native, got the opportunity to help plant greens in the desert area in Gansu province during the summer vacation in 2020.

After working for four consecutive years in the western China desert area, Zhang said he realized that local planting is heavily dependent on human labor.

"There is no suitable machine for the planting work. Our volunteers, even veteran workers, have to dig pits and plant trees purely by hand," said Zhang.

"Since last October, I decided to make a machine to raise working efficiency," Zhang said.

In about 10 months, Zhang and some 20 members of his team developed an automated planting trolley and a piece of hand-held planting equipment, both of which will hopefully help farmers work more conveniently and efficiently at lower cost. The two tools have completed on-the-spot tests and are ready for mass production.

Thanks to their solution to practical problems emerging in desert planting, Zhang and his team stood out in 1,079 projects at this year's Light Technology Public Welfare Creation Camp and received the top prize.

"The development of the products was powered by Tencent's technologies, and the recognition of the competition also encouraged me to devote myself into turning the desert into an oasis," Zhang said.

Jointly sponsored by China Soong Ching Ling Foundation and Tencent Foundation, the creation camp was initiated in 2020, and in the past four years, the event has attracted nearly 5,000 teams and more than 20,000 developers to participate.