Water should not be a privilege for some people. Rather, it should be a right for everybody.
Sabrina Rashid Sheonty Co-Founder and CEO of Tetra
Sabrina Rashid Sheonty - Co-Founder and CEO of Tetra
2026 WE Empower UN SDG Challenge Finalist, Asia Pacific Region
In 2018, while completing her final year in water resources engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Sabrina Rashid Sheonty began exploring how renewable energy could help address Bangladesh’s coastal water crisis. Through the Hult Prize, often called the “Nobel Prize for students,” she and her three co-founders developed the idea for a low-cost, solar-powered desalination system for communities facing extreme salinity. After becoming regional finalists and gaining mentorship and support from organizations including UNDP and Unilever, the team continued beyond the competition, turning their student idea into Tetra, a social enterprise working to make safe drinking water accessible through solar-powered innovation.
The Crisis: Salinity and the Human Cost
For families living in Bangladesh's southwestern coastal regions, water salinity is not just an environmental issue; it is a social and health crisis. Sabrina describes communities consuming water with salinity levels 8 to 10 times higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Consuming saline water can contribute to hypertension, kidney problems, and severe complications during pregnancy, such as eclampsia. Beyond health, the water crisis often places the burden of water collection on women and girls, forcing some young girls to walk for hours each day and miss school. Sabrina also points to a painful social reality shaped by colorism and gender inequality: in some marginalized communities, parents fear that prolonged exposure to saline water may darken their daughters’ skin, affecting their perceived marriage prospects in a society where lighter skin is often unfairly associated with beauty, status, and desirability. This insecurity can pressure families to arrange marriages earlier, demonstrating how climate-driven water insecurity deepens existing inequalities for girls.
Innovation: Technology Meets Humanity
Sabrina and her three co-founders developed an IoT-enabled, solar-powered water treatment system designed for accessibility. Unlike traditional government or NGO plants that solely operate during set business hours, Tetra’s automated plants are accessible 24/7. The system uses an automated water ATM model where users can fill their buckets with a simple tap of a card. Each plant is strategically placed to serve 400 to 500 households, ensuring that even the farthest households do not have to walk more than 10 minutes to reach clean water. By leveraging IoT, Tetra can track every liter dispensed, providing a data-driven approach to accountability and impact. To keep the model inclusive, Tetra uses “Project Shulov,” promoting affordability. Water is sold for .50 Bangladeshi Taka per liter, just slightly above the unit treatment cost of 0.37 taka, reinforcing Tetra’s belief that safe water is a right rather than a luxury.
Impact: Empowering Women for Water
One of Tetra’s most transformative initiatives is the “Women for Water” project, which empowers local women to become micro-entrepreneurs. Rather than being mere employees, these women are business partners who manage daily plant operations and share in the profits. The impact of this economic shift is vivid. Sabrina shares the story of Deepa Kobiraj, who used Tetra’s clean water to establish a tea stall. Previously, saline water made the tea bitter and difficult to sell, but with reliable fresh water, Deepa’s sales increased, allowing her to buy groceries and provide for her children. For other clients like Shanti Dhar, the proximity of the plants has saved hours of labor, allowing her more time to care for her family. Through its community-based model, Tetra supports several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By creating women-led
micro-entrepreneurship opportunities and reducing the burden of water collection on girls, Tetra advances SDG 5: Gender Equality. Its affordable desalinated water supports SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, while its solar-powered operations contribute to SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. By building resilient water infrastructure in climate-vulnerable communities, Tetra also advances SDG 13: Climate Action.
Leadership and the Road to 2030
As a woman CEO leading researchers and engineers, Sabrina Rashid Sheonty defines leadership as empathy in action. She believes leadership is a mindset that encourages people to think beyond themselves and create meaningful impact in others’ lives. Her perspective deepened during a field visit in coastal Bangladesh, when an elderly woman told her team, “You are here to give us clean water; we pray for you.”
In that moment, Sabrina saw water innovation not only as a technical challenge, but as a human responsibility.
Looking toward 2030, Sabrina sees Tetra as part of a larger movement to make safe drinking water a basic right for climate-vulnerable communities. Tetra’s goal is to reach 1 million people with safe water by September 2030, expanding its solar-powered, community-based model across Bangladesh and eventually to other regions facing similar water insecurity. Through the WE Empower UN SDG Challenge, Sabrina hopes to showcase Tetra’s work and gain the support needed to scale that vision. For her, the road to 2030 is about more than building water plants; it is about amplifying communities who deserve safe water, education, health, and a more dignified future.
By Samiha Uddin, HON394 Student