Arjya Srestha Aich

In rural and remote areas of Bangladesh, many people lack access to a safe and pure drinking water supply, which increases the rate of waterborne disease cases throughout the country. To tackle this problem, Arjya used his robotics skills to design and create giant water treatment plants that take water from raw sources like ponds, rivers and canals and purify it to make safe and drinkable water. To do so he designed a seven-stage water purification treatment plant that is not only affordable but also more efficient than those of competitors – with the capacity to provide 10,000 litres of purified water per hour.  

127 of these water treatment plants have been built all over the country, and each provides pure drinkable water to 10,000 people locally. Locals can buy purified water from these plants at less than 1 cent for 12 litres of water – and in total, more than 1.2 million people in Bangladesh directly use the water purified by these treatment plants. The treatment plants are also owned at a local level, with locals able to make decisions on various aspects of their running; any profit generated from selling purified water is reinvested back into maintenance and construction. Arjya’s initiative has helped reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from waterborne diseases; his aim is to provide 150 million people with the benefits of his pure drinking water system by the end of this decade. 

In recognition of his efforts to provide pure drinking water services in rural and remote areas of Bangladesh, Arjya was a recipient of the 2023 Global Youth Award. He is also an ambassador for the London-based Legacy Project Global, which has the aim of increasing global awareness of the pure water crisis. In 2022, Arjya entered the Stockholm Junior Water Prize with his water treatment plant design to serve people in remote areas earning less than $5 per day. His design became the national finalist, and he was invited to meet the then Swedish First Secretary of Environment and Climate Change, with whom he discussed various developing technologies that could help reduce global warming.  

If Arjya wins the Global Student Prize, he will use the money to fund research and development for new water treatment plant designs. He would like to provide a water treatment plant for Rohingya refugees who came from Myanmar to Bangladesh, since they are in one of the largest refugee camps in the world (with over a million people) and lack reliable access to safe drinking or sanitation water. The remainder of the funds would be used for a global warming project as well as a ‘Robotic Arm’ research project. The aim of the latter would be to provide disabled people with a neurally-controlled robotic arm at zero initial cost and in combination with a collateral-free business loan to help them start a small business.