Brothers Develop a System to Predict and Detect Wildfires

It’s hard not to feel helpless as wildfires consume acres upon acres of landscape in the U.S. Two brothers from California, Daniel (17) and Matthew (13) Persky, are developing a way to mitigate this tragic problem, inspired by a fire that broke out where their parents were married. Their SkyScouts system, currently on a fast track in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, claims to be the first to both predict and detect wildfires. 

We talked with Daniel and Matthew about how the technology works, why they champion entrepreneurship, and what they plan to do in Paris to empower youth around business and policy. Be sure to click the arrow above to listen to our first brotherly Future of the Business World conversation!

An edited transcript appears below. 

Wharton Global Youth Program: Hello and welcome to Future of the Business World, the podcast featuring high school entrepreneurs from around the world.

I’m Diana Drake with the Wharton Global Youth Program at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, our mission at Wharton Global Youth is delivering excellent content, programs, courses and competitions to high school students from Wharton, a world leader in business education.

Our latest podcast episode is a strong example of how innovation and problem solving share the same breath. Ideas often come from personally felt needs, and today’s guests have been experiencing one need very profoundly.

Daniel Persky, a high school student from California, and his younger brother Matthew, are the founders of SkyScouts, a system to predict and detect wildfires. The U.S. state of California has lost millions of acres to wildfires in the past several years, and the most recent fires are devastating the city of Los Angeles, not far from the Persky’s home. As many of us watch this tragedy unfold, their innovation is an idea whose time has come. We’re curious to learn more about how it works. Daniel, Matthew, welcome to Future of the Business World.

Daniel Persky: Thank you, and we’re extremely excited to be here. Thank you for your time.

Matthew Persky: Thank you so much.

Wharton Global Youth: Daniel, you joined the Wharton Global Youth community last summer when you attended our Essentials of Finance program. I don’t know much more than that. Can you tell us about yourself, your school and your interests? And Matthew, please do the same.

Daniel: Hi everyone. I’m Daniel Persky, and I’m a 10th grader in high school. One thing you should know about me is that I’m an advocate for youth empowerment and climate action, and I was invited to speak as a delegate at the United Nations General Assembly action days late last year, a few months ago, and the UN ECO SOC conference back in April. I’m also a learning planet youth council member and mentor. One thing I’m really interested in is social entrepreneurship, and together with my younger brother, Matthew, I recently invented a new technology named SkyScouts.

Matthew: Hi, I’m Matthew. I’m an eighth grader, so I’m 13 years old. I’m a teacher, Future Youth Council member and a Learning Planet Youth Fellow. I enjoy giving persuasive advocacy speeches about empowering youth through education and policy so that my generation can make a difference in climate action. I’m also a co-founder of  SkyScouts with Daniel.

Wharton Global Youth: It’s really nice to meet both of you. Let’s get right into this. What is SkyScouts, and how and why did you collaborate on its development? Daniel?

Daniel: In short, SkyScouts is the first system to predict and detect wildfires. And what we’re doing is we’re proactively preventing and suppressing early fires before they grow more and threaten lives. As you’ve probably seen on the news, wildfires can cause a lot, a lot of devastation in a very short amount of time, so every minute and every second counts when we’re mitigating them. So that’s where we come in, and we’re hoping to get fires before they even start, or get them as soon as possible, so that less people die and less devastation happens.

Wharton Global Youth: Can you tell me about how the technology works?

Daniel: We’re predicting and detecting wildfires. First off, we’re looking at lightning data. Where’s lightning striking? And then we pair that with other data like humidity and wind patterns, and then that tells us which lightning strikes are more likely to cause wildfires. For example, if lightning strikes in an open field where there’s a lot of wind and there’s a lot of dead brush around the area, it’s pretty likely to start a fire, rather than a lightning strike in an area where it’s raining or something like that. That’s part of our predictive component. And then we also look at power equipment signals, which have been the causes of wildfires in the past, and if there’s voltage drops or other irregularities that could be indicative of something touching a power line, or a downed power line, or some sort of malfunction with the technology, which could cause a wildfire. And then we also detect wildfires on the ground, so they work together. If we predict something, then we can detect on the ground and verify whether our predictions are true, and we do that by looking at particulates.

Wharton Global Youth: Matthew, why did you start this? What inspired it?

Matthew: What really got us thinking about this huge problem with wildfires was actually the Maui wildfires, which happened a couple of years ago in Hawaii. Our parents got married in Maui, and when we heard about the fires that were happening a couple years ago, we were really devastated and heartbroken because so many lives were being lost because of one mishap in the communication process. We started thinking about how we could stop wildfires and the different causes of wildfires. And then we came up with SkyScouts.

Wharton Global Youth: The humanity in all of this is really something. And I was hoping you could talk about the situation in California right now, and your lived experience so close to the LA fires. What does that do to your entrepreneurial energy, knowing that you have this tech startup in the works? What are you observing? Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Matthew: Many of our friends are affected by the LA fires, and many have lost their homes, which were totally destroyed or severely damaged. Our friends who have not lost their longtime homes had to evacuate for their safety. So, many people that we know are affected by the smoke and poor air quality, and it’s heartbreaking to see on the news.

Daniel: If I could just add a little bit. Even though we’re not directly affected by wildfires, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the state of California is affected in the same way we are, either through our friends and relatives living in affected areas, and then also, the secondary effects, which kill a lot of people. It’s more than you think from the smoke and pollution.

Wharton Global Youth: It must be something to be so close to it. Daniel, you describe yourself as a social entrepreneur and a passionate advocate for equality, climate action, youth empowerment. I’ve heard this from a lot of other students before, and I sense you might be more committed to these causes than simply a passing interest. How are you acting on your interests? Tell us more about your passions.

Daniel: Regarding equality, my brother and I, again, we’re working together. We founded the Equality Collective in middle school, and we’ve just been distributing educational supplies, hygiene products, clothes, sports equipment and other resources to underserved communities. The goal of that is to level the playing field and advance equal opportunities. And for climate action, we’re working on SkyScouts, and we’re trying to reduce wildfire destruction. The pollution releases more greenhouse gases and contributes to natural disasters being worse.

Wharton Global Youth: And Matthew, are you closely aligned with your brother’s goals? Tell us about your interests.

Matthew: So, Daniel is very interested in social entrepreneurship. Like you said, I’m also interested in business, but I’m more passionate about using my voice and advocating for improved policies that advance climate action and youth empowerment. He is approaching it from a business perspective, while I’m approaching it from a policy perspective, and while I’m using my voice.

Wharton Global Youth: And do you guys riff off each other? I mean, do you feel as though you feel inspired by each other’s energy? What is it like to be brother entrepreneurs and have these interests?

Matthew: Yeah, I think I can speak on this. So I think it’s really helpful for me, especially because Daniel’s two years older than me, and he’s definitely a mentor for me, and he inspires me, because he’s doing so much. I want to follow his lead, and he teaches me a lot of things.

Wharton Global Youth: How about you, Daniel?

Daniel: You know, we have our ups and downs as brothers. But I think it’s fun to work with my brother on SkyScouts or the Equality Collective, whatever it may be. Yeah, I think it strengthens our bonds, so I’d recommend it for any other siblings out there.

Wharton Global Youth: Let’s go back to SkyScouts for a minute. You claim that this technology has been validated by fire chiefs and industry experts. Tell us more about that process of market research and feedback.

Daniel: The way it started was by cold emailing fire chiefs and police chiefs and just setting up meetings with them whenever we could to learn about their current processes. So basically, talking through their processes for responding to fires or other problems, and whatever problems there may be in those processes, or whatever inefficiencies there are. And then we introduced our SkyScouts system. Back then it was just an idea, and we’d get their feedback, and they helped shape the idea into what it is and shape our actions into creating what the product is today. We’ve also attended wildfire prevention events and other conferences, just to network with more industry experts who might know people who are useful, or maybe give us some bits of advice or feedback, which would be helpful for us.

Matthew: Definitely a really helpful thing is that the fire and police chiefs that we do end up talking to, they all know each other, and so when we talk to one and give our pitch, they can link us in with other fire and police chiefs who have a more specific area of expertise that would work well with what we’re doing in this industry.

Wharton Global Youth: You also claim to be the first system to predict and detect wildfires. I suspect this space is crowded with people trying to make a very bad situation better through prevention. Do you have a lot of competition? What does it look like out there? Wild, wild west?

Daniel: Yeah, there definitely is a lot of competition, and the market is huge because of the scale of the problem. Even just in California, the problem is so huge, and that’s not to mention other states or countries that are also experiencing wildfires. The industry experts we’ve spoken to have told us that nobody’s really taking a holistic approach like we are — prediction and detection all in one. Because right now, what’s clear is the industry is focused on detection, so kind of reactive, reacting to visible smoke or heat signatures or calls from people. We’re trying to use the newest technology to predict before people are able to even see smoke. We want to be able to know that there’s a fire happening and that we can stop it immediately.

Matthew: Like Daniel was saying, we shift the paradigm of firefighting from reactive to more proactive, which means we try to predict and stop fires in their tracks early. Our SkyScouts system is fast, accurate and cost effective, which therefore means it can cover larger areas.

Wharton Global Youth: Where is SkyScouts in its development and rollout as a startup? What progress have you been able to make?

Daniel: Our patent application was recently accepted into the USPTO [United States Patent & Trademark Office] Climate Change Mitigation Patent Programs. Right now, we’re still currently making improvements on our sensor prototypes and our machine learning algorithms. So, we do have a sensor prototype, but it’s not ready to go. It’s not ready for consumers. We’re still testing it and improving it just to make it more accurate.

Wharton Global Youth: And so, you don’t yet have a patent, but it’s in this program which will help you reach the point of getting a patent. Is that correct?

Daniel: Yes, it’s been accepted into a fast-track program by the Patent and Trademark Office.

Matthew: I think the hardest thing with our development of SkyScouts is the testing part, because obviously we can’t start fires by ourselves in our backyards, So, testing is definitely really hard. But we are working with fire chiefs to do a pilot program. So maybe if they have to go fight a fire, we can develop our testing more by putting our sensor near it.

Wharton Global Youth: Daniel, I have to ask, what did you take away from Essentials of Finance last summer that helped to fuel your social entrepreneurship?

Daniel: Overall, I really enjoyed the program. I’d recommend it for anybody. It was very helpful for my social entrepreneurship journey. I think even though it’s focused on corporate finance — It also was focused on personal finance — it was extremely useful for social entrepreneurship as well. I feel it enhanced my understanding of scaling and growing a small company into something large. I think that’s something that will be useful for us, because we’re working as a startup. I think as an entrepreneur, it’s very easy to get lost in the vision of what it could be, but finance brings everything back to reality with cold, hard numbers. It gives you a reality check on whether your business is sustainable and profitable. And yeah, I really recommend this course for anybody considering finance or entrepreneurship. Five stars.

Wharton Global Youth: Five stars. Okay, so I understand that you are both headed to Paris tomorrow for a youth UNESCO [United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization] conference. What will you do there? Matthew?

Matthew: we’ll meet with UNESCO officials at their headquarters in Paris and speak about empowering youth through technology. I was also invited to host a roundtable that works on connecting different topics that usually work in silos, like education and business, so that we can try to centralize it, and youth can have an easier time being ready for the real world.

Wharton Global Youth: Daniel, are you excited for this?

Daniel: Yeah, I’m excited to go to Paris with my brother. Of course, it will probably be really fun. And yeah, I’m excited to see Matthew speak and also speak a little bit myself on a panel about AI and education.

Wharton Global Youth: Well, I will circle back with both of you and find out how it went. But really, I mean, this does lead into a great question about, what would you like other high school students and teenagers to know about youth empowerment and driving social change, and what would you like them to take away from your dedication and your passion to all of these causes?

Daniel: One really important thing, at least that I believe, is that education is the key to empowerment. It increases human capital, and it increases the value you can generate for other people. It opens a lot of doors, and it inside those doors it gives individuals abilities to make change on a broader scale. It also opens doors to jobs. A lot of jobs related to climate action or things that people are passionate about that they want to help solve are locked behind the door of education. In today’s day and age, it’s very, very important. And one more thing, I hope that youth will consider entrepreneurship as a rewarding career and as a viable career, because entrepreneurships are creating jobs and empowering people. So, if that’s something you’re interested in, I think entrepreneurship is a way to go.

Matthew: The main thing that I love about what I do is that empowering youth can be like a butterfly effect. When you inspire someone, they can do their thing and then inspire someone else, and so on. This is why I love advocacy, because there’s so much untapped potential in many young people that just needs to be realized and given that spark. So, driving social change at first can be a daunting task, but at least for me, when I met new people and I started collaborating with them and getting to know them, it made it much easier and more enjoyable. And I think seeing the smiles and laughs of the people that me and my brother help empower, is really important and impactful for me.

Wharton Global Youth: Okay, let’s end with our lightning round. Please answer these questions as quickly as you can.

What is something about you that would surprise us?

Daniel: I’m really good at magic tricks.

Matthew: I play the jazz saxophone, and I also like basketball.

Wharton Global Youth: As a consumer, what is a brand that aligns with your identity and inspires your loyalty?

Daniel: I’d say Google, because of their free and accessible products.

Matthew: I’d say Nike, because recently, they’ve started their move to zero, which is a move to zero carbon emissions, and it’s very inspiring.

Wharton Global Youth: What would you be caught binge-watching at midnight?

Daniel: You probably wouldn’t find me binge-watching it at all. I’d probably be reading a historical fiction book. That’s my go to genre.

Matthew: I would be binge-watching our SkyScouts pitch.

Wharton Global Youth: Something you would like to learn that you don’t yet know?

Daniel: I would like to learn more languages because they open so many doors to be able to communicate with more people and understand global challenges.

Matthew: I would like to learn how to inspire people to find their passion like I did myself.

Wharton Global Youth: Last question. You are starting a business-themed talk show. Who is your first guest and what is your first question?

Daniel: I think I would bring Sundar Pichai, because he runs Google, and I would like to pick his brain and ask him about their business model. That’s what really interests me.

Matthew: I would invite Mark Cuban, when he was still on Shark Tank, and I would ask him what the most important factors are that he looks for when making his investment decisions on Shark Tank.

Wharton Global Youth: Daniel, Matthew, thank you for joining us on Future of the Business World!

Daniel: Thank you so much for having us.

Matthew: Yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure to chat with you. Diana, thank you so much.

Conversation Starters

What is SkyScouts and how does it work?

How are Daniel and Matthew driving social change? What resonates most deeply with you about their work and their interests?

How did these brothers shape their idea into something more viable?

Daniel is a big advocate of entrepreneurship. Are you a social entrepreneur? Share your story in the comment section of this article.

The Hero Image was shot by Casey Horner, Unsplash