Muhammad Salman Shah’s ‘Save Water AquaSol’ selected under Electropreneur Park 2.0; funding from STPI Noida
Srinagar, Jun 24: A Class 9 student from Kashmir is developing a water-treatment startup that aims to purify water from any source while using significantly less energy than conventional systems.
Muhammad Salman Shah, 15, is the founder of Save Water AquaSol, a startup currently in pre-incubation at NewGen IEDC, University of Kashmir. The system is being designed to be source-insensitive.
“It is being built to treat water regardless of where it comes from,” Salman told Rising Kashmir. “The energy consumed should be less than a household’s monthly electricity consumption, but still enough to purify water for multiple villages at the same time.”
Dr Irfana Rashid, Head of NewGen IEDC at the University of Kashmir, described what the startup is working toward. “AquaSol is addressing some of the key limitations of conventional purification systems,” she told Rising Kashmir. “Its core approach combines a modular low-pressure design with an integrated purification process, aiming for high water recovery of up to 90 per cent while consuming significantly less energy than traditional RO systems.”
The 90 per cent figure is a design target. The prototype is still being developed, and independent testing has yet to be conducted.
Dr Rashid said the modular architecture is also being designed with practical deployment in mind. “The design is intended to simplify maintenance, reduce downtime, and allow capacity expansion without major redesign,” she said, adding that the goal is to make it suitable for schools, rural communities, disaster-relief operations, and institutional users.
On operating costs, she said the combination of lower power consumption, reduced reject water, and simplified servicing is expected to “translate into lower lifecycle operating costs” compared to existing systems.
AquaSol is funded by STPI Noida through NewGen IEDC, University of Kashmir. The startup was selected under Electropreneur Park 2.0, a flagship initiative of the Software Technology Parks of India, an autonomous society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. The selection was confirmed in a letter signed by Vandana Srivastava, Director and CEO of Electropreneur Park, STPI Noida.
Dr Rashid said the support goes beyond funding. “The support of NewGen IEDC in association with STPI under Electropreneur Park 2.0 is crucial in helping the founder move from engineering design to prototype development, industry outreach, pilot deployments, and commercialisation,” she said. “We are providing incubation support, mentorship, innovation infrastructure, and access to funding and industry networks.”
Salman, who is also the author of two books, a selected member of the John Locke Institute, and an accredited representative of the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth for the UNESCAP Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development, said the problem he is trying to solve has always been concrete. “It has to work in a village that does not have infrastructure. It has to work in an emergency,” he said. “If it requires a truck and a generator, it does not solve the problem.”
Salman is in Class 9, and the prototype is still being built. But Save Water AquaSol has moved past the stage of being just a school project. It is now in a government-backed facility, with institutional support around it, working toward a device that could one day reach the communities it was designed for.
