Yasmeen
Seventeen-year-old Shifa and her teammates won the King’s Trust International’s Enterprise Challenge Pakistan (ECP) 2026 with their groundbreaking business idea of a device that converts fog to electricity, powering street lighting to cut road accidents in fog-prone regions.
In Shifa’s home province of Sindh, southern Pakistan, thick fog can often disrupt travel, especially in winter, and road accidents surge in low-visibility conditions. Shifa led an all-girl team from her school to develop and pitch an ingenious idea to solve this problem, drawing on the fog itself as an eco-friendly energy solution. The girls’ product, Nebulavolt, uses an absorbent mesh to capture and condense the water droplets in ambient fog, and nanogenerators then convert the energy from sliding droplets into electricity to power lighting.
Studious and academic, Shifa had nonetheless doubted herself and her abilities before she took part in ECP. Naturally reserved, she found public speaking and leadership particularly challenging. But the programme’s combination of structured training, mentorship and hands-on practice empowered Shifa to step up and shine, helping her boost her critical thinking, problem solving and presentation skills – and with them her confidence and self-belief. Previously shy and hesitant to contribute her ideas, today Shifa sees herself as a leader and changemaker, keen to apply her growing skills to drive green innovation and development in her community and country. Shifa and her award-winning team are now using their prize money to explore their potentially life-saving idea in real life.
‘Working on Nebulavolt made me realize that even students like us can solve national problems,’ Shifa explains. ‘To other young girls like me, I would say don’t underestimate yourself, because your ideas truly matter.’
