Katie Taylor

Khethworks

Big Idea: 

As land becomes drier and rains more erratic, more farmers need reliable irrigation. Gas pumps are dirty and expensive to run. Khethworks designs and manufactures solar irrigation that is affordable for smallholder farmers in India. They developed a state of the art solar-powered pump that’s energy efficient, portable, durable, and with financing, cheap enough for almost all farmers. They generate demand for solar pumps, distribute it through existing agro-dealers, and provide after sales support so farmers can irrigate their land year round leaving them better off.

Katie’s a mechanical engineer by training. She’d done research on turbines at Caltech and was selected as a Tata Fellow - a prestigious fellowship to attract scientific talent from MIT to work on the problems that affect Indian people. She worked on the design of a low-cost, low-pressure drip irrigation emitter and a super efficient solar power pump. This led her to co-found Khethworks in Pune, India.

Rainer Arnhold Fellows