For Indian environmental activist Dev Karan, 17, a Young Activist Summit laureate for 2025, it all began with a village pond that no longer looked like a pond. It made climate change real for him, and inspired him to found Pondora, which fosters community stewardship of vulnerable water sources, in 2024. While India has had major efforts to restore water bodies, ongoing maintenance has been a problem. Pondora wanted a model where a pond stays alive because a community stays involved. Students are trained as ‘Pond Ambassadors’ who monitor water health, using a smart pond maintenance kit that combines electronic sensors with simple chemical test strips and is connected to a phone so readings can be logged. Pond committees are formed under the Village Council structure, so responsibility lies with local systems. This approach is a replicable model for water ecosystem restoration, one pond at a time. It validates the idea that small, local solutions deserve to be taken seriously if they are built to last.
