Delhi Youth Build ​₹ 1500 Air Purifier

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, introduced in alliance with Accenture and the International Alliance for YOUth.

The Innovation Prize recognises one of the impactful and scalable community-led improvements from amongst a whole bunch of International Shapers Hubs worldwide.

The popularity comes with grant funding that can allow the crew to considerably increase the initiative throughout Delhi.

Key Options

Identify: Accessible Clear Air Initiative
Price: Round ₹1,450 per unit (practically 5 instances cheaper than business fashions)
Key Chief: Aditi Agarwal (Curator and Mission Lead)
Recognition: Received the 2026 International Shapers Innovation Prize in Geneva, securing a CHF 10,000 (approx. ₹11.87 lakh) accelerator grant

The Downside: Clear Air Shouldn’t Be a Luxurious

Yearly, air air pollution claims practically 7 million lives worldwide, together with greater than 1.6 million deaths in India. Delhi constantly ranks among the many world’s most polluted cities, with residents shedding an estimated 6–7 years of life expectancy attributable to 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 kind of breaths carried dangerous particulate matter.

Whereas air purifiers have change into an important software for safeguarding indoor air high quality, they continue to be inaccessible for hundreds of thousands. Industrial air purifiers sometimes price between ₹6,000 and ₹15,000, inserting them effectively past the attain of many colleges, shelter houses, old-age houses and low-income households that want them probably the most.

This inequality impressed one query: Can clear air be made inexpensive for everybody?

The concept started in August 2025, not in a laboratory, however in a toilet. Armed with a family desk fan, an oblong HEPA filter and some stretchable hair ties, the crew assembled its first prototype merely to reply one query—would such a fundamental setup really filter polluted air?

To check it, incense sticks had been lit inside the toilet to generate smoke. Inside minutes, the filter had visibly trapped black particulate matter. It was a easy experiment, however it proved one factor: the idea labored.

That first experiment sparked months of analysis.

The crew studied how business air purifiers functioned, itemizing each single part utilized in present merchandise. Utilizing a first-principles strategy, every part was challenged with a easy query:

“Is that this actually essential for air purification, or is it merely growing price?”

By stripping away all the pieces non-essential, the crew redesigned the air purifier from scratch. One of many greatest breakthroughs got here when the crew 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 crew 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 reducing layouts to maximise the variety of elements produced from a single sheet and minimise manufacturing waste.

After dozens of design iterations, the crew arrived at a air purifier that’s compact, light-weight, sturdy and prices a fraction of commercially obtainable options. As manufacturing started, one other realisation emerged.

Constructing each air purifier by hand would by no means permit the challenge to achieve the communities that wanted it most. As a substitute of making a manufacturing facility, the crew selected to create livelihoods.

No Manufacturing unit 

The challenge has now partnered with a Ladies’s Self-Assist Group (SHG), the place educated girls assemble the purifiers regionally, producing earnings whereas concurrently serving to ship clear air to weak communities.

Highlights:

• Constructed for roughly ₹1,450, making it practically 90% cheaper than most commercially obtainable options.
• Light-weight and moveable.
• Power-efficient, consuming lower than 24W of energy.
• Modular, permitting particular person elements to get replaced somewhat than changing all the gadget.
• Designed for easy meeting, enabling native manufacturing by way of community-based manufacturing fashions.

The initiative combines environmental innovation with social impression by creating employment alternatives for ladies whereas bettering 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 attain an total elimination effectivity of roughly 80% for PM2.5 and PM10, validating its effecveness in bettering indoor air high quality.

The challenge is at the moment in its pilot section. 

• Deployed 25 air purifiers throughout neighborhood establishments.
• Benefited greater than 250 folks, together with kids, 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 neighborhood areas.
• Carried out neighborhood consciousness periods 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 challenge.

Trying Forward

Following the Innovation Prize, the initiative is coming into its subsequent section of progress.

The rapid aim is to deploy 410 extra air purifiers throughout Delhi, reaching greater than 2,000 folks in colleges, anganwadis, shelter houses, hospitals and neighborhood centres. The challenge will proceed increasing its women-led meeting mannequin by way of Self-Assist Teams, creating sustainable livelihood alternatives whereas growing entry to inexpensive clear air.

The crew 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 regionally.

In the long run, the initiative seeks to ascertain a financially sustainable cross-subsidy mannequin the place each 5 paid items assist fund one air purifier for underserved communities, making certain that entry to scrub air is rarely decided by earnings.