Seawater Greenhouse

Charlie Paton

Zubair Patel

Charlie Paton - Founder, Managing Director
Charlie studied at Central School of Art and Design in London. Working his way through College as an electrician - starting his career with ITN as a studio assistant on the Apollo 11 launch (1969), he went on to become a lighting designer and maker of special effects. Charlie's fascination with light and plant growth led to the concept for the Seawater Greenhouse. Charlie is the inventor of the Seawater Greenhouse technology and is also a co-founder and director of the Sahara Forest Project.

Zubair Patel - Engineering
Zubair came across Seawater Greenhouse whilst completing his final year design project at Brunel university: inventing a dew collection machine, to irrigate the garden. A water man at heart, using his BEng in Mechanical Engineering and Building Services provided Zubair with the quality of knowledge and skills to later produce models for key aspects of the Seawater Greenhouse.

Adam Paton

Adam Paton - Design Engineer
Adam graduated with a BEng in Product Design and Engineering from Sussex University where he worked on a CSP water sterilisation device for developing countries. Adam joined Seawater Greenhouse as the principal design engineer in 2008 after gaining interest and hands on experience with the 2004 Oman greenhouse.

Dr Raffaella Bellanca - Business Development
Raffaella is an experienced consultant in the energy sector specialising in innovation and communication with particular emphasis to the context of International Development. For a good part of her career she has worked as research engineer in the field of combustion engineering and software design for energy companies and the automotive industry. She graduated from the University of Milan with a M.Sc. in Environmental Physics. Her PhD, from Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden, focused on the reduction and optimization of chemical models which led to her involvement in the set up of a clean-tech company.