Climate change is often discussed in the language of targets, pledges and awareness campaigns. But some of India's youngest climate changers are approaching it rather differently: by looking at a specific problem, building something that works and asking whether it can be scaled.
Their interventions range from a solar-powered ironing cart and automated composting systems to industrial wastewater treatment, textile upcycling and marine-degradable materials. What connects them is not simply their age, but the insistence that environmental action should produce something tangible.
Vinisha Umashankar: Replacing charcoal with sunlight
Vinisha Umashankar's story remains one of India's most striking examples of a young person's idea becoming a global climate conversation.
While still a student in Tamil Nadu, Vinisha noticed roadside ironing vendors using charcoal-powered irons. Instead of treating it as an everyday sight, she began investigating where the charcoal came from and what its use meant for air pollution, deforestation and the health of the people working around it.
Her answer was a solar-powered ironing cart that replaces charcoal with electricity generated by solar panels. According to the Earthshot Prize, five hours of sunlight can power the iron for six hours. The cart also incorporates phone-charging facilities and additional features intended to create supplementary income for vendors.
The invention took her far beyond the school science-project circuit. Vinisha became a finalist for the inaugural Earthshot Prize in 2021 and addressed world leaders at COP26 in Glasgow. Her intervention was particularly powerful because it did not ask street vendors to simply "go green"; it proposed a different way for them to do the same job.
In 2026, her solar ironing cart continues to receive attention as an example of youth-led climate innovation.
Source : Instagram
Amaira Kapoor, 16: Cooling classrooms without air-conditioning
Amaira Kapoor, a 16-year-old innovator from Gurugram, founded Project Vaayu, a low-cost evaporative cooling system designed for under-resourced government schools facing extreme heat.
Her starting point was the 2024 North Indian heatwave, when temperatures approached 50°C. Amaira noticed the disparity between students learning in air-conditioned classrooms and children in government schools where classrooms could lack reliable electricity, fans or adequate ventilation. Rather than simply documenting the problem, she began building a cooling alternative.
Project Vaayu uses upcycled terracotta cups and the principle of evaporative cooling to lower classroom temperatures. According to Action For Nature, the units have reduced temperatures by up to 10°C in participating classrooms. After early prototypes made from scrap wood leaked and warped, Amaira redesigned the system with an iron framework and sealed joints for greater durability.
Amaira was named the first-place winner in the 15–16 age category of the International Young Eco-Hero Awards, in the Technology & Innovation, Climate Action & Energy category.
Source : Instagram
Piyush Jha: Making industrial wastewater work harder
At 19, Piyush Jha is tackling a problem considerably less photogenic than a beach cleanup: industrial wastewater.
Through Vasudeva Innovations, Jha developed VarunaX, a modular biological wastewater-treatment system designed to address some of the high land, energy and operating requirements associated with industrial treatment.
The system uses electroactive microbes, a specialised air-cathode reactor architecture and IoT-enabled monitoring to break down pollutants. Its proposition is particularly interesting because wastewater is treated not simply as something that needs to be disposed of, but as a resource within a more efficient treatment system.
The project has moved beyond the purely conceptual stage. According to beVisioneers, VarunaX has already treated 5,200 litres of wastewater and received a conditional purchase order/letter of intent for a 50,000-litre wastewater treatment plant from an industrial MSME. The project is also on track, according to the organisation, to treat more than five million litres.
For Jha, the challenge is therefore no longer simply proving that the science works. It is taking a laboratory innovation into an industrial environment, where cost, land requirements, reliability and scalability ultimately determine whether climate technology survives.
Source : Linkedin
Abhishek Dhanda and Prabhkirat Singh: Teaching waste to decompose faster
For Ludhiana students Abhishek Dhanda and Prabhkirat Singh, the problem was organic waste, and the surprisingly long time it takes to turn it into useful compost.
Their answer, Prithvi Rakshak, is an automated vermicomposting system that combines sensors, robotics, AI-driven monitoring and a proprietary bioenzyme formulation. Its robotic component, called VermiDoot, assists with collecting and processing organic waste, while the system monitors conditions such as temperature and humidity.
The result is an attempt to dramatically shorten the conventional composting cycle. Reporting on the project says the students reduced the process from approximately 60 to 90 days to around 38 days. The system has reportedly processed more than 12,000 kg of organic waste per month.
The project won Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2025 and earned the students ₹1 crore in incubation support at IIT Delhi to refine and scale the prototype.
What makes Prithvi Rakshak compelling is its practicality. Rather than telling households and institutions to segregate waste and compost it, the students are attempting to solve one of the reasons large-scale composting can be difficult: making the biological process faster, more predictable and easier to monitor.
Source : Official Linkedin of Prithvi Rakshak
Manya Harsha: Giving old sarees another life
Sixteen-year-old Bengaluru-based Manya Harsha approaches climate action through something deeply familiar to Indian households: the old saree.
Her initiative, Grandma's Green Weave, collects discarded sarees and bedspreads and works with local tailors to convert them into reusable cloth bags. What began as a project inspired by her grandmother's habit of reusing old fabrics has grown into a much larger circular-fashion initiative.
As of September 2026, the project reports having repurposed more than 2,200 sarees and 230 bedspreads into over 28,000 bags, diverting close to 1.2 tonnes of textile waste and helping avoid an estimated 2.45 lakh plastic bags.
There is something particularly relevant about this intervention in a country where clothing has traditionally been reused, repaired, altered and passed down long before "circular fashion" became industry terminology.
Manya's model is low-tech by design. Collect the fabric, work with local tailors, create something people can actually use, and keep the material in circulation for longer.
Source : Instagram
Parthivi Narula and her team: Rethinking plastic before it reaches the ocean
At the other end of the materials spectrum are young researchers trying to rethink what plastic itself can be.
As part of IIT Delhi's Change Makers 2025 Summer Bootcamp, Class 11 student Parthivi Narula and her team developed a prototype for marine-degradable bioplastic, aimed at addressing plastic waste entering marine environments.
The project was one of 18 prototypes developed by 106 school and undergraduate students during the three-week programme. Other teams worked on everything from crop-waste packaging and smart waste segregation to greywater filtration and battery recycling.
Narula described the prototyping process as the most enjoyable part of the programme, with the team spending hours in research facilities trying to get the material composition right.
That detail matters. The project is not being presented as a finished replacement for conventional plastic. It is a prototype, a material solution being tested, adjusted and developed. And that is precisely what makes it interesting.
Source : Linkedin
From climate awareness to climate engineering
What these young innovators have in common is not a particular technology or even a single definition of climate action. Their approaches are radically different.
Vinisha looked at the fuel powering an everyday livelihood. Kwatra looked at what happens to waste after it reaches the shore. Jha is rethinking how industry treats wastewater. Dhanda and Singh are speeding up the biological processing of organic waste. Harsha is extending the life of textiles. Narula and her team are asking whether materials designed for marine environments can replace some of the plastics that reach them.
The important shift is from awareness to intervention.
None of these solutions, individually, can solve India's climate or waste problems. Nor should early-stage prototypes be presented as finished technologies. Some still have to demonstrate commercial viability, scale, durability or measurable long-term environmental impact.
But perhaps that is the point. Climate innovation does not always begin with a billion-dollar company or a government programme. Sometimes it begins with a teenager noticing a charcoal iron, a polluted beach, a discarded saree or a laboratory material that does not behave as expected, and deciding that the existing system can be redesigned.
For Gen Z's climate changers, the question is increasingly not what can we do about the environment?
It is: what can we build differently?
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Climate change is often discussed in the language of targets, pledges and awareness campaigns. But some of India's youngest climate changers are approaching it rather differently: by looking at a specific problem, building something that works and asking whether it can be scaled.
Their interventions range from a solar-powered ironing cart and automated composting systems to industrial wastewater treatment, textile upcycling and marine-degradable materials. What connects them is not simply their age, but the insistence that environmental action should produce something tangible.
Vinisha Umashankar: Replacing charcoal with sunlight
Vinisha Umashankar's story remains one of India's most striking examples of a young person's idea becoming a global climate conversation.
While still a student in Tamil Nadu, Vinisha noticed roadside ironing vendors using charcoal-powered irons. Instead of treating it as an everyday sight, she began investigating where the charcoal came from and what its use meant for air pollution, deforestation and the health of the people working around it.
Her answer was a solar-powered ironing cart that replaces charcoal with electricity generated by solar panels. According to the Earthshot Prize, five hours of sunlight can power the iron for six hours. The cart also incorporates phone-charging facilities and additional features intended to create supplementary income for vendors.
The invention took her far beyond the school science-project circuit. Vinisha became a finalist for the inaugural Earthshot Prize in 2021 and addressed world leaders at COP26 in Glasgow. Her intervention was particularly powerful because it did not ask street vendors to simply "go green"; it proposed a different way for them to do the same job.
In 2026, her solar ironing cart continues to receive attention as an example of youth-led climate innovation.
Source : Instagram
Amaira Kapoor, 16: Cooling classrooms without air-conditioning
Amaira Kapoor, a 16-year-old innovator from Gurugram, founded Project Vaayu, a low-cost evaporative cooling system designed for under-resourced government schools facing extreme heat.
Her starting point was the 2024 North Indian heatwave, when temperatures approached 50°C. Amaira noticed the disparity between students learning in air-conditioned classrooms and children in government schools where classrooms could lack reliable electricity, fans or adequate ventilation. Rather than simply documenting the problem, she began building a cooling alternative.
Project Vaayu uses upcycled terracotta cups and the principle of evaporative cooling to lower classroom temperatures. According to Action For Nature, the units have reduced temperatures by up to 10°C in participating classrooms. After early prototypes made from scrap wood leaked and warped, Amaira redesigned the system with an iron framework and sealed joints for greater durability.
Amaira was named the first-place winner in the 15–16 age category of the International Young Eco-Hero Awards, in the Technology & Innovation, Climate Action & Energy category.
Source : Instagram
Piyush Jha: Making industrial wastewater work harder
At 19, Piyush Jha is tackling a problem considerably less photogenic than a beach cleanup: industrial wastewater.
Through Vasudeva Innovations, Jha developed VarunaX, a modular biological wastewater-treatment system designed to address some of the high land, energy and operating requirements associated with industrial treatment.
The system uses electroactive microbes, a specialised air-cathode reactor architecture and IoT-enabled monitoring to break down pollutants. Its proposition is particularly interesting because wastewater is treated not simply as something that needs to be disposed of, but as a resource within a more efficient treatment system.
The project has moved beyond the purely conceptual stage. According to beVisioneers, VarunaX has already treated 5,200 litres of wastewater and received a conditional purchase order/letter of intent for a 50,000-litre wastewater treatment plant from an industrial MSME. The project is also on track, according to the organisation, to treat more than five million litres.
For Jha, the challenge is therefore no longer simply proving that the science works. It is taking a laboratory innovation into an industrial environment, where cost, land requirements, reliability and scalability ultimately determine whether climate technology survives.
Source : Linkedin
Abhishek Dhanda and Prabhkirat Singh: Teaching waste to decompose faster
For Ludhiana students Abhishek Dhanda and Prabhkirat Singh, the problem was organic waste, and the surprisingly long time it takes to turn it into useful compost.
Their answer, Prithvi Rakshak, is an automated vermicomposting system that combines sensors, robotics, AI-driven monitoring and a proprietary bioenzyme formulation. Its robotic component, called VermiDoot, assists with collecting and processing organic waste, while the system monitors conditions such as temperature and humidity.
The result is an attempt to dramatically shorten the conventional composting cycle. Reporting on the project says the students reduced the process from approximately 60 to 90 days to around 38 days. The system has reportedly processed more than 12,000 kg of organic waste per month.
The project won Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2025 and earned the students ₹1 crore in incubation support at IIT Delhi to refine and scale the prototype.
What makes Prithvi Rakshak compelling is its practicality. Rather than telling households and institutions to segregate waste and compost it, the students are attempting to solve one of the reasons large-scale composting can be difficult: making the biological process faster, more predictable and easier to monitor.
Source : Official Linkedin of Prithvi Rakshak
Manya Harsha: Giving old sarees another life
Sixteen-year-old Bengaluru-based Manya Harsha approaches climate action through something deeply familiar to Indian households: the old saree.
Her initiative, Grandma's Green Weave, collects discarded sarees and bedspreads and works with local tailors to convert them into reusable cloth bags. What began as a project inspired by her grandmother's habit of reusing old fabrics has grown into a much larger circular-fashion initiative.
As of September 2026, the project reports having repurposed more than 2,200 sarees and 230 bedspreads into over 28,000 bags, diverting close to 1.2 tonnes of textile waste and helping avoid an estimated 2.45 lakh plastic bags.
There is something particularly relevant about this intervention in a country where clothing has traditionally been reused, repaired, altered and passed down long before "circular fashion" became industry terminology.
Manya's model is low-tech by design. Collect the fabric, work with local tailors, create something people can actually use, and keep the material in circulation for longer.
Source : Instagram
Parthivi Narula and her team: Rethinking plastic before it reaches the ocean
At the other end of the materials spectrum are young researchers trying to rethink what plastic itself can be.
As part of IIT Delhi's Change Makers 2025 Summer Bootcamp, Class 11 student Parthivi Narula and her team developed a prototype for marine-degradable bioplastic, aimed at addressing plastic waste entering marine environments.
The project was one of 18 prototypes developed by 106 school and undergraduate students during the three-week programme. Other teams worked on everything from crop-waste packaging and smart waste segregation to greywater filtration and battery recycling.
Narula described the prototyping process as the most enjoyable part of the programme, with the team spending hours in research facilities trying to get the material composition right.
That detail matters. The project is not being presented as a finished replacement for conventional plastic. It is a prototype, a material solution being tested, adjusted and developed. And that is precisely what makes it interesting.
Source : Linkedin
From climate awareness to climate engineering
What these young innovators have in common is not a particular technology or even a single definition of climate action. Their approaches are radically different.
Vinisha looked at the fuel powering an everyday livelihood. Kwatra looked at what happens to waste after it reaches the shore. Jha is rethinking how industry treats wastewater. Dhanda and Singh are speeding up the biological processing of organic waste. Harsha is extending the life of textiles. Narula and her team are asking whether materials designed for marine environments can replace some of the plastics that reach them.
The important shift is from awareness to intervention.
None of these solutions, individually, can solve India's climate or waste problems. Nor should early-stage prototypes be presented as finished technologies. Some still have to demonstrate commercial viability, scale, durability or measurable long-term environmental impact.
But perhaps that is the point. Climate innovation does not always begin with a billion-dollar company or a government programme. Sometimes it begins with a teenager noticing a charcoal iron, a polluted beach, a discarded saree or a laboratory material that does not behave as expected, and deciding that the existing system can be redesigned.
For Gen Z's climate changers, the question is increasingly not what can we do about the environment?
It is: what can we build differently?
TO BE CONTINUED, FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.
This is where the surface ends and the reporting begins.
The complete piece, the full archive, and access to The French Press Circle. Reporting answerable only to its readers.
Already a subscriber ?
Login
Read these on the house, with our compliments.
A selection from the current issue, open to all readers. Read them in full. The rest is one decision away.
