SWF – Stockholm Water Foundation

Daniel Cox was a national finalist in the 2024 Australian Science and
Engineering Fair and will represent Australia at the International Science and
Engineering Fair (ISEF) in the United States in May 2026. Daniel is a multiple-time
medallist in the Australian Informatics Olympiad and the Australian Chemistry
Olympiad, and ranks in the top 5% nationally in mathematics. Daniel co-founded two

STEM clubs at his school, the Informatics Club and the Engineering Club, and
established a Cross-Institutional Student Research Program connecting high-achieving students
students across schools. He is the founder of Green Kites International Association
(www.greenkitesinternational.com), a youth-led global non-profit that improves health,
education, and living conditions for underprivileged children in rural Vietnam.

SunRays Aqua System Solar-Thermal Control of Invasive Aquatic Weeds A Distributed Heliostat Approach for Chemical-Free Freshwater Management

This study aimed to determine whether a distributed, non-focusing solar-thermal system could deliver weed-lethal temperatures to floating aquatic weeds without chemicals or sediment disturbance. The SunRays Aqua System uses a bank-mounted array of flat-mirror heliostats to project a broad, non-focusing thermal field onto a receiver, carried either by a screw-pontoon platform that lifts and partially dewaters the weed mat to overcome the water’s heat-sink effect, or by a drone for otherwiseinaccessible sites. The prototype was evaluated through thermal calibration trials and mesocosm experiments on Azolla filiculoides. Calibration confirmed 20 heliostats as the minimum to reliably exceed 60 °C, and high-dose treatment reduced dry biomass to 17% of control at day 14, outperforming both mechanical removal (72%) and low-dose treatment (54%)….