Meet Nathan Tan, the 17-year-old Plano teen whose AI air-quality project serves about 1,000 Texans

A 17-year-old student from Plano, Texas, has built an artificial intelligence tool to track air pollution in vulnerable neighborhoods, winning a national award and $10,000 for his work. Nathan Tan started the non-profit group Shared Skies Initiative to fight environmental inequality across Dallas, where poorer communities and minority families often breathe dirtier air but lack local pollution monitors. His work earned him the 2026 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, an annual award given to 25 outstanding young leaders across the United States and Canada.Personal struggles spark projectAccording to North Texas E-News, Tan was inspired to act by his own health struggles and local volunteering. The teenager suffers from a respiratory illness and has lost family members to lung cancer. While tutoring primary school children in West Dallas, a student asked him why the air outside looked so hazy. When Tan looked into the issue, he found that children in West Dallas suffer from asthma at rates several times higher than the Texas state average. Despite the health risks, only one official monitoring station covered an area of more than 900 square miles, leaving whole neighborhoods witho...