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 (16) 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 ECOSOC 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 Teach the 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. 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 bond, 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.
“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 inside those doors it gives individuals abilities to make change on a broader scale.” –Daniel Persky, co-founder, SkyScouts
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 Pilot Program. 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 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 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
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP is the key phrase for “innovation and progress”. It’s amazing to listen to such young brothers who are passionate about youth empowerment and policy. The loss of lives in Maui was the catalyst to take action, proving that real startups are not selfish ventures driven by solely profists intertings, as we are usually taught. Instead, businesses are built on empathy, collaboration and innovation, they come from the desire to improve society and create meaningful change in our communities.
That’s what motivates us to work in human-centered products and services that offer the best solution to our target audience, while generating significant profits to create a sustainable impact, create jobs and reach financial freedom. I really admire Daniel for this initiative, for being willing to dive into this challenging journey and learn from scratch everything about entrepreneurship and the business model; and I look up to Mathew because, despite his young age, he has already discovered a clear passion for his work and is committed to helping others find theirs.
This last point is very valuable having in mind that many young people tend to choose their career guided by what their parents want them to study or led by the fear of not having economic stability in the future. Consequently, they end up studying something that they aren’t passionate about. When you dedicate yourself to something you love, you gain the motivation and discipline to stand out and succeed, no matter what career you choose. However, when your path is not aligned with your true self, it becomes even harder to thrive.
Finally, a great way to begin this journey is launching non-profit initiatives, just as Daniel and Mathew did with The Equality Collective. These projects allow you to develop your expertise in design thinking strategies while making a real impact.
In different regions around the world, wildfires have been one of the most concerning issues amidst the climate crisis for the past few decades. Approximately 300 to 500 million hectares of Earth’s land surface are burned annually. What exacerbates an already dire situation is the fact that these wildfires have never been predictable due to their varied causes, and they are most likely to escalate into massive forest fires that can burn down entire cities to ash. SkyScouts are what our current global warming fighters desperately need, as they excel in both prediction and detection simultaneously.
Even though people attempt to prevent wildfires from progressing to secondary effects in their early stages, it is often challenging to achieve this goal. According to The Guardian, at least 30 people died, and the recent LA wildfire destroyed 17,000 structures in January. Additionally, South Korea, where I live, recorded 32 deaths and countless injuries. The world cannot afford to remain defenseless against terrifying wildfires that often tie our hands and feet, and the accomplishments of Daniel and Matthew resonate with me even more deeply.
Collaboration with police chiefs and fire chiefs strengthened SkyScouts’ wildfire prevention efforts. Additionally, they considered the common reasons for wildfires and applied the method for detecting the fires. Their legal and technical knowledge, combined with years of experience, will enable them to develop strategic plans for the solution. Without the help of firefighters and police who become involved in the situation, it would be nearly impossible to determine where to start with these unpredictable wildfires.
Currently, just waiting until the fire is controllable is a usual response. Not even the firefighters dare to throw their bodies into the disaster while people are dying. But, if more and more systems like SkyScouts get implemented, these wildfires would be able to be repressed one day and protect vulnerable ones from the fires.
Daniel and Matthew were the first to take a direct approach to solving the problem of wildfires by inventing a program that combines the abilities of both prediction and detection.
Although their idea had originated from a small concern about wildfires at their parents’ honeymoon place, their strong executive leadership and determination for the environment had led them to create such an innovative wildfire system. This shows their passion and sincere care for our environment.
Their invention not only helps mitigate devastating wildfires but also inspires and motivates teenagers to begin their journey towards what they are passionate about. This could, therefore, be a significant precedent for further discoveries of youths.
Furthermore, their progress inspires adults to take more active action for climate change by acknowledging how even teenagers are highly dedicated and diligent on environmental issues.
Thus, it is essential to support the inventions of younger generations that have the potential to drive innovation, bring about significant social changes, and shape public opinion.
SkyScouts was developed by Matthew and Daniel Persky which helps to prevent and eliminate fires before they can form into large wildfires. Their invention works by analyzing data about lightning strikes, weather conditions, patterns, and signals from electrical systems and power lines. If any data appears to be incorrect, the brothers alert fire stations in the area about potential wildfires. This invention operates in real-time, providing firefighters with immediate data on potential fire locations to prevent them from escalating into large wildfires.
The brothers’ invention drives social change because it shows, even though they are only teenagers, they can still make a difference. This provides other teenagers a chance to try their own inventions to try and change the world based on the success of the Persky brothers. For example, some of the most random and important inventions were created by teenagers just simply experimenting with stuff they found interesting such as the television and popsicles which to this day have become staple inventions in our everyday lives. What resonates the deepest within me is why the brothers invented SkyScouts, the reason being that it disrupted their parents’ marriage in Hawaii. This is something that I can relate to after experiencing the harmful air quality in New York after the wildfires in Canada during early June 2023. The Persky brothers’ drive to prevent wildfires is truly inspiring, showing how hardship can lead to motivation for finding real solutions.
During the construction of SkyScouts, Daniel and Matthew faced significant challenges. One of the most difficult ones they faced was that their product was extremely difficult to test and tweak. This was because testing it involved placing it near fires to record data and they simply couldn’t start a fire in their backyard. In order to overcome this challenge, they worked with professional analysts and fire chiefs to place their sensor closer to ongoing fires to collect better data to tweak their program. This allowed the technology to be better adapted and allowed their product to be more viable in that environment.
Like Daniel and Matthew, I also experimented with being an entrepreneur, although not on the same level as them. Throughout middle school, I sold gum, charging around 200% more for each stick and upwards of 500% for each pack of gum. Even though I was basically scamming. people in return for small amounts of profit, selling gum taught me valuable lessons like supply and demand. It was lessons like this which grew my consumer base allowing me to make more money. Seeing their story just reminds me that their story is the same as mine, where they saw a problem that needed solving and worked to solve it while developing a product that could be used to save countless lives.
In California, wildfires are no longer rare incidents. They’re an annual reality. I vividly recall the dark orange skies, suffocating haze, and my dad helping neighbors haul a blown-over tree off the road as we evacuated this year’s LA fires. At a hotel that night, we watched the news helplessly as more and more homes, schools, and small businesses were consumed, phones buzzing with frantic texts from friends and family. Seven months later, many families still can’t return home, land and water remain polluted, and toxic ash has left lasting damage on people’s health. The harsh reality of climate change felt inescapable.
Thankfully, innovations like SkyScouts are increasingly avant-garde. Daniel and Matthew Persky’s mission to transform wildfire preparedness systems has reimagined how we confront crisis: with foresight, collaboration, and youth-led ambition. What I admire most about SkyScouts is that it isn’t reactive, as the world too often is. It aims to predict, prevent, and shift the paradigm from inertia to initiative.
This article reinforced the fact that our ideas, even on a small scale, can help confront global issues with creativity. As someone who also leads a youth driven tech-based initiative – this year, I led Venture, our school’s entrepreneurship club – I’m further inspired to use a proactive mindset to make real change. In fact, following the fires, Venture partnered with the Environmental Club to organize a clothing drive/upcycling project, turning old, donated clothes into a fully student-run business. I’ve always believed that young people can create tangible and meaningful impact when it comes to combating issues like climate change. SkyScouts is proof that we don’t need to wait to act – we just have to start.
To young people reading this, in a time when climate anxiety is easy to feel but hard to fight, Daniel and Matthew’s story reminds us that youth is a catalyst for growth, not a constraint. Though natural disasters are inevitable, we can choose how we improve our preparedness each time. Daniel and Matthew have chosen boldness, ingenuity, and passionate hope to fight the flames. So can we.
Daniel and Matthew Persky are driving social change by combining innovation and entrepreneurship in order to create a system known as SkyScouts, which accurately predicts and detects wildfires. With the implementation of their newly developed system, wildfires can be avoided and mitigated before they cause widespread destruction. By analyzing a variety of different data sources, such as lightning strike or humidity data, SkyScouts is able to precisely locate where wildfires are most likely to start or have already started, saving peoples’ lives and property.
While Daniel and Matthew have not been directly affected by wildfires, they reside in California, a state that has numerous wildfires every year. Like Daniel mentioned in the article, not only does the initial wildfire take peoples’ lives, but also the smoke inhalation that many people suffer from. By using SkyScouts, the number of casualties from wildfires and its effects can be decreased tremendously.
Using the real-world insight and feedback that fire and police chiefs provide, the Persky brothers are able to improve on their system, solving problems that first responders currently face. As SkyScouts further develops and expands, I believe it will transform how we fight wildfires and will play an important role in saving lives and protecting communities in the future.
Daniel and Matthew’s commitment to improving not just their community but also the world resonates with me the most because it shows how young people can change the world and society when they are fueled by passion and determination. After learning about the Maui fires in Hawaii, where their parents were married, they were motivated to create SkyScouts in order to prevent future wildfires from causing any more harm to people, the community, and the environment.
When I read this article, I was instantly reminded of one day in 8th grade. While everyone was going home after school, the sky turned a dark amber color. Later, we would learn that this smoke was a result of wildfires raging in Canada. Although I have never personally witnessed a wildfire, the Persky brothers’ story is a truly remarkable display of advocacy, hard work, and teamwork.
The brothers combined their strengths in order to achieve their success. Daniel’s proficiency in tech and business, combined with Matthew’s focus on advocacy and policy, enabled the success of their system. I feel a personal connection to this type of teamwork. I am part of a FIRST Robotics Team. We have three departments that are crucial to our team’s success. Our business department focuses on advocacy and policy, while the mechanical and software departments concentrate on building the robot. Every member has a unique skill set from machining to design. The mission of FIRST is to teach and inspire engineers through teamwork and cooperation.
Skyscouts is a kind of forward-thinking innovation. It focuses on early detection, enabling preventive measures rather than reactive measures. A shift from reactive to proactive measures is a bold move, but one that could save lives. One of my personal goals is to invent or create a machine capable of solving pollution.
This work is a reminder that the youth are change makers. The ideas and work of youth can be life-saving. Youth advocacy is of utmost importance, and the Persky brothers are a prime example of it.