When 16-year-old Zainab Mohammed stepped onto the stage in Geneva, Switzerland, to receive the 2025 Global Young Innovators Award, she was shaking not from fear, but disbelief.
The SS2 student from Kaduna had just beaten 4,000 participants from 67 countries with her ground-breaking project: a low-cost water purification device made from coconut shells, moringa seeds, and local clay designed to help rural communities access clean water.
Zainab, who attends Government Girls Science School, Kawo, says the idea came to her during a biology lesson on filtration. “We were talking about water-borne diseases, and I just kept thinking about my grandmother’s village, where people still fetch water from streams,” she said.
With help from her chemistry teacher, she spent six months perfecting the prototype, entering it into the Global Science for Social Good competition organized by the World Youth Scientific Congress.
Her invention impressed the judges not just for its innovation but for its scalability and use of local, sustainable materials. The device can purify 20 litres of water a day all for less than ₦2,000 to make.
Zainab’s win has sparked pride across Nigeria and renewed calls for more investment in STEM education, especially for girls. The Federal Ministry of Education has since pledged to sponsor her further studies abroad.
But Zainab remains humble. “This is just the beginning,” she says. “There are still many problems to solve and I want to be one of the people solving them.”
