Kiara Nirgin, a scientist from Johannesburg, serves as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Chima, a generative artificial intelligence startup based in San Francisco. She co-founded Chima with her sister Niharah Nirgin, who secured over $5 million (R82.5 million) from prominent international investors.
Kiara studied at Stanford University, specializing in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence. Her journey began with winning the Google Global Science Fair Grand Prize for an innovation based on citrus fruits aimed at combating drought.
In 2016, her project 'drought combatting with fruits' allowed her to beat students from around the world and receive a scholarship of $50,000. This work was a response to the recent drought in South Africa, which led to livestock deaths and crop failures, being the strongest drought since 1982. Kiara developed an organic polymer using avocado peels and orange zest.
In a viral video published by Instagram user @zephzoid in October 2026, the American content creator highly praised Kiara's trajectory, noting: 'This is proof that South African genius knows no borders—she went from solving local drought problems in Johannesburg to creating the future of corporate AI in Silicon Valley.'
In her presentation, Nirgin explained how she created a biodegradable and superabsorbent substance that can be 'planted' next to crops to form 'mini water reservoirs in the soil.' The process started by boiling orange zest in water to obtain pectin-rich liquid—a carbohydrate with high absorption capacity.
She then mixed the pectin with crushed dried pieces of avocado peel and orange zest, baked the mixture to remove moisture, and subsequently ground everything into a powder. Finally, the powder was combined with additional zest and peel. The resulting polymer in water is capable of retaining 300 times its own weight. During tests, the invention maintained soil moisture, and plants grown with it were taller, healthier, and produced more flowers.
Currently, Kiara acts as a co-founder and CTO of Chima, an AI company located in San Francisco, California. Together with her sister Niharah, the startup is developing advanced generative AI systems focused on complex human reasoning to automate intricate workflows in global corporations.
The new AI platforms are being developed by the Stanford scholar and Steven Thiel. According to the BBC, Kiara, a student of St Martin's School founded by the Anglican Church in Johannesburg, created an 'orange zest mixture' as a replacement for expensive and non-biodegradable superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) after conducting three experiments over 45 days. She stated that this was done using food industry waste.
These ingredients included natural oils from avocado peel and molecules found in orange zest. Kiara added in her online report: 'The product is completely biodegradable, inexpensive, and has better water retention properties than commercial SAPs. The only resources involved in creating the 'orange zest mixture' were electricity and time; no special equipment or materials were required.'
Since then, she has been featured in TIME and Forbes magazines in lists of most influential people. She is also Steven Thiel, the youngest member of the Google Impact Fund board, and a Y Combinator graduate.