KaanchKala began during my Grade 11 internship at my father's glass factory. Every day, I watched broken and rejected glass being swept up and thrown away. The factory paid to get rid of it. It had value once — sand, energy, and labour had gone into making it — and now it was worth less than nothing.

That struck me as an economics problem, not just a waste problem. If discarded glass could be turned back into something people wanted, the raw material was nearly free. The only missing input was skill.

The skill came from women who were already close to the factory but had never been part of it — the wives of factory workers, and other women from my community who wanted to earn but had no formal work experience. We started small: a few women, a few weekends, learning to cut, paint, and finish scrap glass safely.

Today, every KaanchKala piece — coasters, lamp shades, tableware, décor — starts as factory waste and is handcrafted by these women. They are paid per piece they make, so their earnings grow with their skill. For many of them, it is the first income they have earned in their own name.

We are still small, and every piece is slightly imperfect, because every piece was once broken. That's the point.