Big problems need big ideas

Water.

Just plain water.

Sounds simple. But an estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water. The earth is 70% water, 3% of that is freshwater and only 1% of the world's freshwater is readily accessible for direct human use. In poorer countries, water-born disease runs rampant, affecting children the worst, a child dies every 8 seconds. Powerful numbers, but this is the one that I find the most shocking, 80% of all the diseases would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water.

Dean Kamen has a vision: Living a better life through better technology. The inventor of the Segway created a revolutionary vapor-compression water distiller, which can make pure medicinal-grade drinking water out of anything that's wet, including urine or toxic waste. The Slingshot in a single day it can produce 50 water cooler-sized bottles. It does not require any filters, membranes, chemicals, etc, so there aren't continual costs of replacing needed materials. Where do you plug it in? You don’t ... It runs on dung. More specifically the methane gas that is produced as the dung decomposes.

So here is my big idea to the bottled water industry. On March 22 (World Water Day) Dasani, Aqua Fina, Evian, Perrier, Fiji, etc., pledge industry wide to affect the world’s water epidemic. Kamen believes he can get the Slingshot production costs down to $1,000 to $2,000 per unit, how many villages could be helped? What could a $43 billion dollar industry do? With half of one percent they could give clean, drinkable water to over 100,000 villages.

I know it won’t solve the problem. But the might of everyone pulling in the same direction would be powerful. And the idea of Water companies saving lives by giving them clean water feels so natural.

Just an idea. Happy New Year.