In July 2026, the New Delhi Hub represented India on the World Financial Discussion board’s International Shapers Annual Summit in Geneva, the place its Accessible Clear Air Initiative was awarded the Innovation Prize 2026 and a grant of 10,000 Swiss Francs, offered in alliance with Accenture and the International Alliance for YOUth.
The Innovation Prize recognises one of the vital impactful and scalable community-led improvements from amongst a whole bunch of International Shapers Hubs worldwide.
The popularity comes with grant funding that may allow the workforce to considerably develop the initiative throughout Delhi.
Key Options
Title: Accessible Clear Air Initiative
Price: Round ₹1,450 per unit (almost 5 occasions cheaper than business fashions)
Key Chief: Aditi Agarwal (Curator and Mission Lead)
Recognition: Gained the 2026 International Shapers Innovation Prize in Geneva, securing a CHF 10,000 (approx. ₹11.87 lakh) accelerator grant
The Drawback: Clear Air Shouldn’t Be a Luxurious
Yearly, air air pollution claims almost 7 million lives worldwide, together with greater than 1.6 million deaths in India. Delhi persistently ranks among the many world’s most polluted cities, with residents shedding an estimated 6–7 years of life expectancy as a result of extended publicity to polluted air. Nearly 40% of Delhi’s residents present impaired lung operate, making air air pollution one of many metropolis’s most pressing public well being crises.
We take over 20,000 breaths every single day. Think about if each a type of breaths carried dangerous particulate matter.
Whereas air purifiers have develop into an important instrument for safeguarding indoor air high quality, they continue to be inaccessible for tens of millions. Industrial air purifiers sometimes price between ₹6,000 and ₹15,000, putting them properly past the attain of many faculties, shelter houses, old-age houses and low-income households that want them essentially the most.
This inequality impressed one query: Can clear air be made inexpensive for everybody?
The thought started in August 2025, not in a laboratory, however in a rest room. Armed with a family desk fan, an oblong HEPA filter and some stretchable hair ties, the workforce assembled its first prototype merely to reply one query—would such a primary setup truly filter polluted air?
To check it, incense sticks had been lit inside the lavatory to generate smoke. Inside minutes, the filter had visibly trapped black particulate matter. It was a easy experiment, but it surely proved one factor: the idea labored.
That first experiment sparked months of analysis.
The workforce studied how business air purifiers functioned, itemizing each single element utilized in current merchandise. Utilizing a first-principles method, every element was challenged with a easy query:
“Is that this really crucial for air purification, or is it merely growing price?”
By stripping away every little thing non-essential, the workforce redesigned the air purifier from scratch. One of many greatest breakthroughs got here when the workforce changed the unique rectangular filter with a cylindrical one. The cylindrical design allowed for a a lot smaller enclosure, making the air purifier considerably extra compact, lighter and extra inexpensive.
The primary casing was manufactured utilizing 3D printing. Though efficient, it proved too costly for large-scale deployment.
The workforce then redesigned the housing utilizing laser-cut acrylic sheets held along with threaded rods and fasteners. Even the acrylic sheets themselves had been optimised repeatedly, experimenting with completely different slicing layouts to maximise the variety of parts produced from a single sheet and minimise manufacturing waste.
After dozens of design iterations, the workforce arrived at a air purifier that’s compact, light-weight, sturdy and prices a fraction of commercially out there alternate options. As manufacturing started, one other realisation emerged.
Constructing each air purifier by hand would by no means enable the mission to achieve the communities that wanted it most. As a substitute of making a manufacturing facility, the workforce selected to create livelihoods.
No Manufacturing facility
The mission has now partnered with a Girls’s Self-Assist Group (SHG), the place skilled ladies assemble the purifiers domestically, producing earnings whereas concurrently serving to ship clear air to weak communities.
Highlights:
- Constructed for about ₹1,450, making it almost 90% cheaper than most commercially out there alternate options.
- Light-weight and moveable.
- Power-efficient, consuming lower than 24W of energy.
- Modular, permitting particular person parts to get replaced reasonably than changing the whole gadget.
- Designed for easy meeting, enabling native manufacturing by community-based manufacturing fashions.
The initiative combines environmental innovation with social influence by creating employment alternatives for girls whereas enhancing entry to cleaner indoor air.
Unbiased Testing & Validation
To validate its efficiency, the air purifier underwent unbiased testing at an NABL-certified laboratory.
Unbiased testing carried out by an NABL-certified laboratory discovered the air purifier to realize an total elimination effectivity of roughly 80% for PM2.5 and PM10, validating its effecveness in enhancing indoor air high quality.
The mission is presently in its pilot part.
- Deployed 25 air purifiers throughout group establishments.
- Benefited greater than 250 individuals, together with youngsters, aged residents and immunocompromised people.
- Put in items at organisations together with Deepalaya College, Sheows Previous Age Care Centre, Rojavanam Previous Age Residence and Ghaziabad District Hospital, alongside deployments in orphanages, anganwadis, shelters and group areas.
- Carried out group consciousness classes on air air pollution and indoor air high quality.
- Constructed partnerships with VMTC, Genus Energy, TVS Sundaram Textiles, manufacturing companions and implementation organisations supporting the mission.
Trying Forward
Following the Innovation Prize, the initiative is getting into its subsequent part of progress.
The speedy aim is to deploy 410 further air purifiers throughout Delhi, reaching greater than 2,000 individuals in colleges, anganwadis, shelter houses, hospitals and group centres. The mission will proceed increasing its women-led meeting mannequin by Self-Assist Teams, creating sustainable livelihood alternatives whereas growing entry to inexpensive clear air.
The workforce additionally goals to construct a decentralised mannequin that may be replicated by different International Shapers Hubs throughout India, enabling communities to fabricate, assemble and deploy inexpensive air purifiers domestically.
In the long run, the initiative seeks to determine a financially sustainable cross-subsidy mannequin the place each 5 paid items assist fund one air purifier for underserved communities, guaranteeing that entry to wash air isn’t decided by earnings.
