Poonam Bir Kasturi

Poonam Bir Kasturi is an industrial designer, facilitator, entrepreneur and mentor. She graduated in Product Design in 1986 from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, specialising in product design. She created Daily Dump in 2006 as a way to use her innovative designs to combat the problem of waste in Indian cities.

Daily Dump is a social enterprise that involves the design, manufacture, distribution and servicing products for home composting. The organisation uses craft skills to reduce the waste generated by households, and thus reduce the pressure on the already far-from-perfect public waste management system. Over the years Kasturi’s social enterprise has won a variety of awards including Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Schwab Foundation of the World Economic Forum in 2016; the Smart Cities India Awards 2016  for Decentralised Waste Management in May 2016; and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research – for Decentralised Waste Management in September 2016.; SEED Low Carbon Award of the year 2018; Swachh Bharat Social Entreprise of the year 2018.