Sheinbaum Says She Wants to Meet Xóchitl, the 8-Year-Old Chiapas Inventor of a Solar Water Heater

Mexico City — President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would like to meet Xóchitl Guadalupe Cruz López, the 8-year-old from Chiapas who built a solar water heater from recycled materials, after an influencer’s viral video urged the president to recognize the girl’s talent.

“Dear Alexis, I saw your video. I would love to meet Xóchitl and support her,” Sheinbaum wrote in the comments of a post by content creator Alexis Omman, who has built a large following on TikTok and Instagram for his donations and humanitarian work.

The video has drawn more than 1.6 million views and has been shared more than 73,000 times on Instagram, according to the outlet that first reported the exchange.

The appeal to the president

In his post, Omman asked Sheinbaum to “give her a medal or simply shake her hand.” He questioned whether a president, “with all the problems going on,” would want to set aside a day to help a young girl.

He said he has no interest in politics and is not asking for money, pledging to cover Xóchitl’s dreams “out of my own pocket.” His argument was that when a president speaks about a subject it becomes national news, and that attention could be put “toward something positive.” Whatever the president decides, he added, recognizing the girl would open the door for more people to learn about her work.

Who is Xóchitl?

Xóchitl is from San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the Altos de Chiapas highlands. At eight years old she became the first girl to receive the ICN Recognition for Women, awarded by the Institute of Nuclear Sciences (ICN) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), for designing a water heater that runs on solar power.

Her scientific training came through PAUTA (Adopte un Talento), a university program created by UNAM academics to encourage science vocations among primary school children.

How the “Baño Calientito” works

The project addresses a daily problem in her community. San Cristóbal de las Casas is cold for much of the year, and low-income families often bathe in cold water, which leads to respiratory illness, particularly among children and older adults.

Her heater also avoids the use of firewood. Xóchitl has explained that cutting down trees for fuel contributes to global warming, while the materials in her device do not harm the environment.

• Solar energy: cold water flows down into plastic bottles painted black, absorbs heat from the sun and rises naturally to a storage tank — with no pumps, electricity or gas.
• Recycled materials: the first model, built for her own home, used two glass doors, hoses and buckets.
• Low cost: a later version was estimated at about $30 worth of materials; another report put it at 700 pesos, a figure that could fall if users source the materials themselves.

From a home prototype to a university project

The invention did not stop at its first version. Xóchitl developed the project with faculty and students from the Universidad del Valle de México’s Tuxtla campus and the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (Unicach), with the aim of bringing it to marginalized communities.

That version held 10 liters of water and reached a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius. The young inventor also wanted to scale it up to 50 liters and take it to families who need it.

Her story traveled well beyond Chiapas: Time magazine featured the invention, and reports said Xóchitl planned to apply for a patent.

Poverty and cold in Chiapas

The social backdrop helps explain the interest the case generated. A researcher cited in 2018 noted that more than 70 percent of Chiapas residents live in poverty and more than 30 percent in extreme poverty, with the highest concentrations in areas such as the Altos de Chiapas.

In that setting, a low-cost solar heater offers a way to save on gas or firewood and to reduce households’ exposure to the cold.

What happens next

So far, Sheinbaum’s message is a public reply on social media. Officials have not announced a date, location or format for any meeting, nor the type of support that would be offered to Xóchitl. It is also unclear whether Omman would take part.