HYDROTECH: Community Water Treatment Initiative

Our initiative is committed to solving the problem of poor access to potable water particularly in vulnerable communities. More than half the population in my Nigeria and other African countries  don’t have access to clean, safe, healthy and reliable drinking water whereas; potable water is necessary for everyone's good health. We are proposing Hydrotech - a water treatment/improvement initiative to help address the problem of poor access to potable water for both city and rural dwellers. Hydrotech is simple, efficient, user friendly, modular in nature, minimal power (750 watts) and maintenance requirements, chemical free and cost effective. On average, one unit of Hydrotech can produce approximately 120 gallons of safe drinking water in 4.5 hours.

Over 80% of Nigerians lack water that is suitable for drinking. A large survey of households published in 2017 found that 90.8% of Nigerians’ drinking water contained some level of E coli bacteria. Only 3.7% of Nigerians had good access to clean water that was completely safe to drink. By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions. 780 million people live without clean drinking water and more than one-third of Africa's population lacks access to safe drinking water. This situation resulted to majority of children, women and youths in Nigeria consuming contaminated or fresh waters from tube wells, streams, ponds and rivers which has a damaging effect on the health due to lack of adequate water treatment technologies. This means high cases of water borne diseases, high cost of healthcare, high rate of poverty, poor standard of living and in some cases high rate of infant mortality particularly in Refugee/Internally Displaced Persons' Camps and vulnerable communities. 

The health and well-being of individuals in a nation absolutely depends on the quality of water available for consumption. Makurdi, the Benue State capital has witnessed remarkable expansion, growth and developmental activities such as buildings, road constructions, deforestation and many other anthropogenic activities. In this regard Tyo Mu Settlement area has been facing a lot of problems such as poor water supply and sanitation, long travelling and queuing by women and children waiting for hours for water, environmental problems of air and noise pollution, uncollected refuse, flooding due to inadequacy or absence of drainage facilities and rapid and unplanned settlement which turns the area (Tyo Mu) into a slum. The population of rural dwellers at Tyo Mu settlement area is estimated at 6500 people who are predominantly farmers, hunters and traders. We are collaborating with the traditional leaders in the communities in deploying our initiative aimed at addressing the water crisis they are facing. The solution will ensure easy access to potable drinking water water  for all thereby addressing their water needs in the most affordable and user friendly way.

The solution we have proposed is a water treatment initiative for vulnerable communities (i.e. Hydrotech).  Hydrotech is simple, efficient, user friendly, modular in nature, minimal power (550 watts) and maintenance requirements, chemical free and cost effective. The technology combines filtration and sterilization methods of water treatment as a unit process of improving contaminated waters for consumption at city and rural levels. On average, one unit of Hydrotech can produce 120 gallons of safe drinking water in 4.5 hours which is enough to serve at least 100 children, women, youths and vulnerable people with safe drinking water a day at little or no cost thereby reducing cases of water borne diseases, poverty, infant mortality, cost of healthcare and improving the general standard of living of the beneficiaries.

The solution will ensure easy access to potable drinking water irrespective of the water source which will impact a positive change on the lives of millions across Nigeria, Africa and the globe when scaled up and deployed in collaboration with the relevant WASH stakeholders like families, community leaders, government and non-governmental organisations, philanthropist and multinationals through direct sales, partnerships, commissions and subscriptions.

With reference to Peter Drucker's definition of innovation (that is, Change that creates a new dimension of performance), I can convincingly classify our solution to be innovation as it is a new application of existing technologies combined into a single unit to give out a specific result/performance of purifying and sterilizing contaminated water for drinking. As we already know, purification technologies like the filters are known and used by people to purify water of physical and some biological contaminants while sterilizers and chemical disinfectants are  equally known for treating biological contamination in water. In our approach, we combined the two technologies into a single unit to perform a dual function in water treatment particularly for vulnerable communities. Rural communities are known for the lack of almost all the basic social amenities including power; our approach has put in mind these shortfalls in design and have built a solar energy unit into the system to make up with the power setback. With a product like Hydrotech, we believe our solution is the kind of innovation which if selected and funded, will solve social problems ranging from poor access to safe drinking water, poverty, unemployment, cost of healthcare and low standard of living just to mention few for our target population.

Our technological solution is called "Hydrotech". Hydrotech is a simple, efficient, user friendly, cost effective, modulated and chemical free water treatment technology that can treat/improve the quality of all sources contaminated or free waters using the purification and sterilization methods of water treatment and solar energy source. 

The core technologies utilized by our solution are:

1. Purification: This is a water treatment method that treats physical and some biological contamination in water like suspended materials like debris/sand and some organisms by trapping them on a filter screen. This filtration technology usually have activated carbon incorporated into it to clean the water of odor, taste and smell.

2. Sterilization: This water treatment method utilizes Ultra-Violet Ray technology to inactivate living microbes in water. When the noble gases in a UV light chamber are powered, they release energy powerful enough to make any microbe in contact with it inactive thereby unproductive for a specific time frame. Any filtrate/fresh water that passes through the UV light is an can be classified safe for consumption.

3. Solar Power: This is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV), indirectly using concentrated solar power, or a combination. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. This technology is adopted due to lack of power in our target population.

As an organisation with a passion for humanity and civility, we have identified the problem of poor access to safe and clean drinking water. Our mission is to improve and protect the health of people living in vulnerable communities through water management, conservation and resource optimization  using local participatory and proactive approach and technologies. While our mission is to provide healthy, clean, safe, reliable, secured and sustainable potable water management system fit for a world-class community, in a time of increasing resource scarcity. With the problem on ground and concept in place, we have faith in our solution to address the problem of poor access to safe and clean drinking water faced by vulnerable communities in the most cost effective and sustainable way in the nearest future.

From our study, the perceived problem has remained due to unavailability of water treatment solutions/technologies in our region of the world even though there is fresh water available for use to the point of causing flooding through out the year. Now we are expecting our solution to solve this problem because its bridging the technological supply gap that is responsible for the water crisis. 

Although water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, only 4% is freshwater and only 0.5% of this water is suitable for human consumption, according to the U.N. More than 2.1 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water and about 40% of the global population face water scarcity. 70 million people in Nigeria are faced with the problem of poor access to safe and clean drinking water particularly at vulnerable communities due to inadequate water treatment technologies and facilities. 

Having deployed two units of our solution in a river-line community with a population of 17300; 4700 members of this community are direct beneficiaries of our solution and still counting. This present number is expected to triple (16100) by the end of 2020 through sensitization campaigns/rallies. When scaled, this solution is expected to serve at least 100000 people in the next five years. The projections in this response are based on a USD 100,000 investment within the period of five years.

The goals of our initiative are:

• To ensure easy access to improved drinking water for families and vulnerable communities.
• To build (awareness and capacity for) source treatment as an essential component of sustainable water management.
• To restructure and extend efficient and equitable collection of source treated water with a view of protecting public health and the environment.

With these goals in mind, we considering a user sample size of 25000 minimum in 24 calendar months. On achievement of the 25000 beneficiaries milestone, we plan to go into partnership with philanthropists, multinationals and relevant stakeholders to scale up for replication. Within the five years implementation period, the replication plan will help impact 25,000,000 people and more within Nigeria. However, we are expecting higher impact when the solution is scaled beyond the boarders of Nigeria.

The current barriers include:

1. Finance: Just like any other startup company, we are currently faced with huge financial challenges that are hindering our smooth progress. With a budget of USD 100,000 for the first phase of deploying our solution, only 15,000 has been raised so far through grants and donations. With this figure, making the milestone of 25,000 is slowly becoming questionable. There will be obvious reasons to be worried about funds as we aim for larger impact in the next five years as nothing can really be achieved without finance.

2. Technically, we have little barriers as we aim to accomplish our goals of solving water crisis using professional and modern best practices and technologies. This barrier also takes root from financial barrier.

3. There are also legal barriers issues as aim for larger impact of our solution such as work permits and registration. 

Other barriers little culture which has to do with the way of life of the locals has a telling effect on the implementation process of our solution which manifest in the form of resistance to change basically due to ignorance and beliefs. Moreso, we are faced with market barriers in implementing our solution as our solution need to be properly refined and upgraded to meet the water needs of a larger population. 

As a startup, this barriers are bound to persist for a little while as we put in place modalities to mitigating them for the next three to five years.

Modalities to overcome these barriers include:

1. Finance: To overcome this barrier, we have considered and adopted multiple revenue model for our solution. This include grant seeking, fundraising, equities, partnership agreements, commissions and donations.

2. Technical: We have plans to address the technical barrier through active participation in accelerator/mentor-ship programs, fellowships, internships, professional training courses, carry out training and retraining of staffs and collaboration with relevant institutions and stakeholders within and out Nigeria.

3. Legality barriers: We have began the process of addressing the legality barrier by registering our company with the appropriate authorities. Efforts are also in top gear to meet up with other legality requirements for implementing our solution.

4. Cultural barrier: To overcome this barrier, we plan to embark on aggressive advocacy and awareness campaigns with the local beneficiaries of our solution through the religious, political and traditional institutions.

5. Market barriers: Modalities have be put in place to carry out intensive refining, upgrade and branding of our solution for larger impact. This upgrade is aimed at size reduction, cost reduction and so on.

Not Applicable

As a startup, we have the following set of people working on our solution team:

1. Full-time staff: We have 7 full-time staff working on our solution

2. Part-time staff: We have 15 part-time staff working on our solution

3. Contractors: We have 3 contractors working on our solution.

4. Other workers: 2 Consultants working on our solution.

Our team is best placed to deliver this solution judging by her skills, background and work experiences.

Skill-wise, our team got versatile professional skills capable of successfully implementing our solution and solving the problem in question.This skills set range from soft, personal and computer skills.

Professionally, we have assembled a team well grounded in their areas of specialization. These backgrounds include sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanitarian sectors.

Experience-wise, our team is rich with on the job experiences in implementing our solution. These experiences ranges from community development initiatives, financial capability, project development and implementation, human resource development, grant making, networking and what have you. 

We are currently partnering with the Benue State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation agency (BERWASSA) under the Benue State Ministry of Water Resources and Environment. The sought partnership with this agency is in form of information sharing and technical support to enable our team achieve her goal of ensuring a society where access to potable water by all is achieved.

Similarly, we have partnered with the Standard Organisation of Nigeria in product development, standardization and quality assurance.

We still have plans of partnering with local/international donor organisations, multinationals and the governments of countries experience water crisis in Africa and the rest of the world by the year 2020.

As a start-up company with a passion to deliver, we have adopted a flexible business model for our solution capable of enabling us achieve our corporate goals.

Having identified our major customer segments as shoppers (government, philanthropist, and multinationals) and actual users (individuals, families, schools, refugees, internally displaced persons and communities), we develop solutions and services to meet the water needs of these customer segments in the most cost effective, user friendly and sustainable way; hence reducing poverty, cost of healthcare, cases of water borne diseases, unemployment, creating wealth and improving their standard of living. These proposed values to our customer segments will be delivered through the deployment of our solution and rendering of our services as when due.

We plan to bring money to fund our work through sustained donations and grants, selling products or services and raising investment capital.

Through direct sales of our solution and services to customers, revenue will be generated for our work. This revenue will be reinvested into our work at all cost to sustain our initiative and fund expected expenses.

Donations and grant making is another revenue base for our solution both in the short and longer term. So far, we are operational due to donations and grants sourced from local and international foundations and multinationals and are will to get more of these donations and grants to continue our initiatives.

As a path to ensuring financial sustainability, plans are in top gear to raise investment capital to implement and scale up our initiative for the overall benefit of humanity and society.

As an early-stage enterprise with a passion to solve social problems (particularly in the area of WASH), we are confronted with several barriers which is basically financial and could also be technical, market, legal or cultural that hinder us from effectively implementing our solution. 

In our attempt to overcome these barriers, we identified partnership and collaboration as the best possible way out. We joined the MIT Solve challenge 2019 because we believe in the goal of MIT Solve which is to create a supportive community of peers, funders, and experts to help advance their work; receive mentor-ship and strategic advice from Solve and MIT networks; attend Solve at MIT and receive access to more than $1.5 million in prize funding for their initiatives.

By joining this challenge, we hope that the training, mentor-ship/strategic advice, network and prize fund will help us advance our work and achieve our goal of ensuring access to safe and clean drinking water for all but particularly for the poor and vulnerable communities.

Not Applicable

We plan to partner with governments, foundations and charities, multinational organisations, philanthropists and all relevant stakeholders. The sought partnership would be in the area of financial and technical support.

Some of the organisations include:

1. Red Cross Society, UNDP, UNICEF, Engineers Without Borders, UNHCR, Charity: Water, Clean Water Fund, Global Water Challenge, Global Water Leaders, PepsiCo, The Stockholm International Water Institute, UN-Water, The World Bank, The Water Project, World Resources Institute, World Water Council, WHO,Bill and Melinda Foundation, Obama Foundation, Dangote Foundation, MTN Foundation, Water.org and many others.

With the prize money from Al Innovations Prize, we will help people to achieve their dream for a better and fulfilled life. With this prize, we would help Al Innovation Foundation achieve her organisation goals while helping our organisation in turn to achieve our organisational goals for providing solutions and services to societal social problems. 

Because our initiative offers solutions and services that foster prosperity and social change, we would use the prize money ($50,000) to serve the underrepresented community members using modern best practices and technology. We hope reach at least 250,000 underrepresented community people.

We would use the prize to promote WASH initiatives in communities with poor access to WASH facilities. This initiative is basically aimed at advancing the needs of women and girls, youths and children. Our WASH technology-focused project/initiative would benefit over 150,000 women and girls.

As a private sector-lead organisation, we would use the prize to create sustainable solutions for refugees and displaced persons with our initiative/product a cross the globe for their self-reliance and promote their peaceful inclusion within their host communities.

Not Applicable

One of the world's biggest challenges is that of Water. With the prize money of up to $25,000, we would deploy our technology in communities facing water crisis; providing safe and clean drinking water for the most vulnerable groups in communities of the world.

Not Applicable.