D-Prize Spotlight: Tackling Pakistan’s Water Crisis Through Tradition and Innovation

Dure Nayab won the 2025 Fletcher D-Prize for launching Matka, a bold social enterprise tackling the water crisis in Pakistani Punjab. Since a series of devastating floods in 2022, millions in Nayab’s home region have struggled to access sanitary drinking water, forced to rely on contaminated wells and rivers for daily drinking water.

A 2025 graduate of Fletcher’s MIB:QM program, Nayab won this $15,000 grant and, with it, a chance to turn her proposal into action. She holds a strong belief in the idea that complex problems like this require solutions from social enterprise in addition to government programs and philanthropy. 

The Fletcher D-Prize, established in 2014, awards annual grants to students and alumni who propose entrepreneurial solutions for poverty-related challenges in the developing world. 

A Globe-Spanning Journey

Nayab was born in a small village in rural Punjab, spending her early years in the region. Her family then moved to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and she has lived between there and Boston as an adult.

Nayab first discovered Fletcher as an undergraduate at Babson College, when a class project asked students to profile an inspirational figure who looked like them. She chose Ayesha Jalal, a Pakistani-American professor at Fletcher and in Tufts University’s history department. Meeting Jalal during a visit to the Fletcher campus left a lasting impression. 

“Since my first time at Fletcher, I absolutely loved it,” says Nayab. “I kept Fletcher in the back of my mind as a school where I’d like to go following undergrad and my early career. I knew I wanted to do an MBA, but with an international affairs twist.”

After earning an undergraduate business degree and working as a consultant, Nayab returned to Fletcher as an MIB:QM student, finding valuable new opportunities for hands-on experience with social enterprise.

“Fletcher connects me to resources both within its own ecosystem and across the broader Tufts community,” says Nayab. “I spent two months in Kenya through an internship sponsored by the Tufts Friedman School. I worked with founders and shadowed entrepreneurs in Nairobi as they scaled their companies through the startup to growth phase.”

An international solution with local elements

Applying her learnings from the classroom and the field, Nayab aimed to tackle the water challenges facing Punjab. She developed a proposal to distribute water filtration devices designed to resemble a traditional South Asian clay pot, called a matka.

“For me, it’s important to look at traditional practices,” says Nayab. “This product could be easily adopted by the community, because they use matkas already.”

Nayab was inspired by an undergraduate research visit to Guatemala, where she visited a company that manufactures water filters embedded in clay pots. However, the Guatemalan pots were too expensive for Nayab’s target market in rural Pakistan, which required a new, localized solution.

In designing the matka prototype, Nayab identified three key material components: terracotta, copper and jute. Each ingredient can be locally-sourced in Pakistan, avoiding potential issues from rising international tariff barriers.

The local touch was a key component in securing the D-Prize.

“Nayab’s project shone from my first reading of the application,” says Marilyn Davison, who serves as the Fletcher D-Prize entrepreneurship coach. “Nayab and her team have on-ground experience in the specific area where she is proposing to do the project. She has an open mindset, takes challenges well and is suited to overcome the obstacles she’ll face.”

From concept to market

With the D-Prize grant in hand, Nayab aims to continue building prototypes and developing relationships with material suppliers in Pakistan. She also hopes to establish a sales force of local Punjabi women who can introduce the product into communities.

To this end, Nayab is collaborating with her sister Qurat Ul Ain. Qurat, who worked with Nayab on a previous startup, serves as country head for Matka and will develop a business team in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Nayab will pursue investor relationships, tapping into Boston’s valuable enterprise network.

“Boston is a great place to be as a founder,” says Nayab. “There are so many incubators and so many competitions that you can enter. I’ve won funding from the D-Prize and the Tufts Derby Center, and I’ve been connected to angel investors and venture capitalists.”

Through the D-Prize experience, Nayab is learning skills that benefit her immediate and long-term career goals.

“I'm interested in impact investment, with an ambition to eventually work in venture capital,” she says. “My work on Matka is giving me the perspective of a founder.”