Water can starve as surely as land.
Nets grow heavy with loss,
The hunger of a coast dragging at every cast.

So she built a friend for the fishers, a craft that rides sunlight.

EdexLive honours Minushri Madhumita, Devi of Sunlight.

To spare the boatman’s back the weight of noon,
To spare his child from the waves for school.

In its circuits, stored the sky.
In its paddles, the wind repeated.

—

From the ponds of Kalahandi to the innovation hubs of India, Minushri Madhumita has been charting a path few could have imagined. As co-founder of ThinkRaw Innovative Solutions, she has placed herself at the forefront of a revolution in aquaculture; one powered not by diesel pumps or human drudgery, but by sunlight and imagination.

Her flagship creation, Dhivara Mitra — literally “the fisherman’s friend” — is a floating solar-powered device designed to help fish farmers in some of the most challenging environments.

Equipped with IoT sensors and automation, it feeds, oxygenates, and monitors the water, turning what was once backbreaking labour into a system of precision and care.

The machine glides across ponds, scattering food, aerating water, and sending data to farmers’ phones. In a part of the country where livelihoods are delicate and margins thin, it represents more than a gadget; it is security, dignity, and possibility.

For Minushri, the story begins in Odisha. Kalahandi, often shorthand for deprivation, has in her hands become the soil of invention. Alongside her colleague Amrita Jagatdeo, she refused to let the narrative of scarcity define her work.

Instead, she looked at the region’s ponds and saw an opening: if technology could be made accessible, if renewable power could be harnessed, farmers here could command both sustainability and profit.

Recognition soon followed — Dhivara Mitra has been showcased at national forums, acknowledged by industry bodies, and honoured by international competitions such as ASME’s iShow.

Yet for Minushri, the truest applause comes not from award plaques but from the ripples in a pond where fish are thriving, and from the women farmers who now call this invention their own.

Her journey is proof that innovation is not the monopoly of metros or multinational labs. Sometimes it begins in a village, under a relentless sun, with someone asking how things might be made better.