Kairos Society Helps Student Entrepreneurs Test Business Ideas

Hemant Sahal, a 22-year-old college student, said his idea for a business began with a bike ride through impoverished villages in his native northern India.

There he met slum residents with skin-pigment disorders caused by metal pollutants in their drinking water. When he learned about metal absorption in a college chemistry course several years later, he said he envisioned mass-producing a small, sponge-like product to cheaply purify water.