A 15-year-old girl invented a solar ironing cart that’s winning global respect

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Vinisha Umashankar and her solar ironing cart. She came up with the idea when she was 12 — then worked with engineers to create a prototype. Now she’s in Glasgow, Scotland, to speak at the COP26 climate change conference.

Umashankar Sathyakumar

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Umashankar Sathyakumar

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And so the Iron-Max was born. It’s a blue-painted cart shaped like an iron box with solar panels fitted on its roof. It’s attached to a bicycle to allow vendors to move through the neighborhood to collect clothes to press. Five hours of bright sunshine is enough to operate the iron for six hours. The energy can be stored in a battery to provide power on cloudy days. The cart also has a coin-operated cellphone and a cellphone charging point where people can pay to recharge their phones to supplement vendors’ earnings.

Umashankar and her solar-powered ironing cart are now getting global recognition. On Tuesday, she gave a powerful 5-minute speech at COP26, the U.N.’s climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in which she urged world leaders to stop talking and start acting. She reminded them about how monumental their actions would be for her generation.

«You are deciding whether or not we will have a chance to live in a habitable world,» she said. «You are deciding whether or not we are worth fighting for, worth supporting and worth caring [for].»

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In September, she was named one of 15 finalists from more than 750 nominees for the inaugural Earthshot Prize launched by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. The award gives five winners $1.3 million each to help scale up their environmental solutions.

Umashankar did not win the prize in her category, «Clean Our Air,» but was praised by judges for being the youngest finalist for the award. (The winner in her category was also from India and developed a portable technology that lets farmers to turn crop waste into fertilizer and biofuel instead of burning it, which creates air pollution.)

Even before the Earthshot Prize, environmentalists saw the potential in Umashankar’s innovation. Last year, Umashankar won the Children’s Climate Prize, a Swedish award for young innovators. «If implemented on a large scale, this is an invention that can have a significant positive impact on India’s air quality and people’s health,» the jury of the Swedish prize said. The prize included a financial reward of more than $11,000 to further develop her innovation.

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Umashankar was 8 when she first learned about climate change and says it has had a huge impact on how she thinks about innovation. She’s exasperated by how the world shrugs off environmental issues as if they are someone else’s problems.

«All of us should understand that environmental issues are real and can’t be fixed at a later date,» says Umashankar. «There is no stop button. There is no magic fix.»

When she’s not busy doing schoolwork or devising solutions to mitigate climate change, Umashankar practices yoga, cycles and swims. «I plan things weeks and months ahead to ensure I don’t waste time,» she says. Her hobbies include stargazing, microscopy and gardening, and she’s a huge documentary buff. «I am a fan of Sir David Attenborough,» she says.

An encyclopedia that was gifted to her when she was 5 sparked Umashankar’s passion for science. She wants to become a scientist and invent products to help protect the environment for future generations. She also aspires to invent a single flu vaccine that can protect against all cold viruses. If it works out, she says she’s pretty confident she’ll win a Nobel Prize.