Sam Etherington, founder of Renewable Wave Power, Lancaster, UK, is willing to take a chance. Admittedly, he can be headstrong when someone tells him he can’t do something. He kiteboards.

The latter is actually part of the reason he’s the youngest person ever shortlisted for the UK Engineering Hall of Fame. At the age of 24.

Surfing on a kiteboard, he realized the power of waves and developed a way to harvest energy through his wave power generator. “Research showed me that waves have a lot of power within the wave, more than the actual movement of the wave,” he says. “That got me excited. Also, look at the fact that wave poweris just a young industry with a great chance to do something radical. When I was starting this, I imagined how things could work on the sea, how do lights roll off the back of the wave. Straight? At an angle? Things float in the water at a height difference between a high wave and a low wave—that’s a great energy potential.”