Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

A billion people lack access to safe drinking water leading to 1.6m deaths/year (WHO). While many potential solutions exist, they are either unaffordable; large scale, risking re-contamination; degrade over time, often without indication; or add toxics such as chlorine often leaving a bad taste.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

The team have a background in developing innovation to solve problems in developing countries, and safe drinking water is one of the biggest challenges. Safe water is also a major leverage point for other challenges, as unsafe water leads to frequent ill-health, with resulting economic loss from missed work.

One of the dilemmas is that very little empowerment has occurred at the individual level. While effective filters are becoming common in middle-class homes, a poor person cannot readily solve their drinking water problem.

Designing an affordable, household water treatment solution is non-trivial. Filters clog up. Chemicals are often dosed incorrectly – too little fails to work, while too much tastes bad or is unhealthy.

UV-C kills pathogens in an extremely short time, leaving no residue. The team designed a small circuit board for the cheapest reliable small UV-C lamp, and plastic parts & a switch to contain it.

The Aquastar, a small bottle; and the mUV, a stirrer for mobile use, are currently in market testing, and have been well received by campers. Camper’s requirements are similar to developing countries except of course for cost. The products draw very little power, and can be powered by a 12V source such as a battery, solar panel, or transformer.

Next we helped a friend in Mexico, now the director of EOZ to develop a solar powered device based on a UV spigot that fits into a bucket, being distributed to thousands of homes lacking electricity.

We are redesigning this device for release worldwide.

The spigot can be fitted in almost any counter top dispenser. These dispensers are often ceramic and can be made by local artisans and can be beautiful.

Our work now is to finalise this product and get it to market where it can help millions of people live healthier lives.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

While municipal water solutions are seen as the preferred state in the global north, in developing countries they have been very slow to reach the rural poor, and do not usually deliver water that is safe to drink. This is due to a variety of factors including corruption, recontamination, availability and affordability of chemicals etc.

Treatment to drinking water standards may not be the preferred state in developing countries, since most water is not used for drinking and most of the cost, in money and energy, of treating water comes from the last step – from contact-safe, to drinking-safe.

Our Preferred State is a beautiful device, bringing effective and affordable water treatment to the home, empowering people to take control, without having to trust the source of their water. This applies whether the source is a municipal supply; a village well; a rooftop; or a river.

If the water is from a river or lake, and needs arsenic or some other contamination removed. can be filtered high-flow filter can be fitted. This combination has already been proved effective in laboratories.

The cheapest UV water filters are about $100+shipping online, but require mains power. (Reverse Osmosis costs at least twice this). The UV Aquastar products will cost about $5 to manufacture in volume, allowing a retail cost of $20, and require only 4W of power during dispensing, allowing power to be supplied from a rechargeable battery, or hand-crank or small solar panel. The bulb is rated for 1000 hours or about 8 years for an average family of 5. At 50 litres/hour this is $0.0004/liter.

UV Aquastar’s mission is to solve the water problem as widely as possible. As well as entering the broadest retail channels possible, it will partner with Social Enterprises to find ways to drop the retail cost, and reach the poorest markets.