Folded Ladder

Born in the family of blacksmiths, Rafiq did not have an easy childhood due to financial problems. It was tough for his father to raise eight children, two sons and six daughters. He mentions that though they come from lower income backgrounds, he never felt poor due to the many sacrifices his parents made for their children, in an attempt to give the best possible upbringing. Since childhood he had access to blacksmith tools, iron and steel, with which he liked to play a lot. He tried repairing old gadgets, making toys from iron, or simply making small replicas. His parents never stopped him from doing anything he wanted. He studied till class ten and then took up odd jobs before finally settling into his father’s workshop.

In 1995, at the age of 20 years, he started his own workshop where he started making grill gates, different iron structures for household use along with the motor repairing work. Born and brought up in a rural area, Rafiq identifies with the problems people have to face and that reflects in the kind of products/ innovations he comes up with. Given the pathetic condition of electricity in the region, for his workshop, he was in dire need of an electricity generator but he could not afford it. He thought of designing a pressure generator for producing electricity by pressing it continuously. Rafiq claims to have developed a generator,which could produce 40W electricity by pressing it continuously. This won him a lot of admiration in the district and he got invited to the Islamic University of Science and Technology to demonstrate his device. There he got linked to the GIAN Cell J&K, regional office of NIF established in partnership with the University of Kashmir, at Srinagar.