Jia Mingxuan
Gold medal winner (youth group) at the 77th iENA Nuremberg International Invention Exhibition 2025 — one of the world's three major invention fairs — beating 540+ inventions from 21 countries with a low-cost, hand-built device.
What they built
Jia Mingxuan invented the 'Automatic Watering Device for Trees in Arid Regions' — a passive condensation-irrigation tool built from steel tubes and recycled plastic bottles sourced from a local hardware store. The device harnesses the day-night temperature differential in his hometown of Aohan Banner (a semi-arid, desertification-prone region of Inner Mongolia) to circulate air through hollow iron pipes buried in the soil, causing atmospheric water vapour to condense underground and drip directly to tree roots — requiring no electricity, no pump, and no manual labour. Inspired by watching steam condense while his mother cooked, Jia independently designed and built the device to address the chronic problem of newly planted saplings dying from drought in his community, where manual watering of remote hillside plots is slow, costly, and often impossible. The invention won the gold medal in the youth group at the 77th iENA Nuremberg International Invention Exhibition (Germany, November 2025) — one of the world's three most prestigious invention fairs — beating 540+ inventions from 21 countries. A patent has been filed and mass production is under consideration.
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