CITRIS Research Exchange - Safe Drinking Water for Developing Countries

December 5, 2007: 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location: 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, the Maria & Dado Banatao Conference Room, UC Berkeley

Ashok Gadgil, Senior Staff Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Adjunct Professor in the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley

Part of the CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley. The complete schedule for the fall semester is online at RE-Fall2007. Sponsored by Infineon Technologies.

Abstract:

About 1.2 Billion people lack access to safe drinking water. The annual toll in human lives is 2 million deaths from waterborne diseases (mostly of children below age 5), several billions of work hours lost to diarrheal episodes, and about 60 million children reaching maturity stunted each year owing to repeated diarrheal episodes throughout their growth years.

Dr. Gadgil invented a low cost, high efficiency, robust, and rapid disinfector for drinking water suitable for poor rural communities in the developing countries. Licensed by the University of California to a California startup, WaterHealth International, the technology currently provides affordable and safe drinking water to about 600,000 persons daily, and the number increases by about 10,000 per week. The price for the disinfected water, without any subsidy or charity, is 2/10th of a U.S. cent per liter -- affordable to almost all rural households.

In Fall of 2007, Dow Chemicals provided a loan guarantee of $30 million to WaterHealth, which will enable expansion of WaterHealth's customer base in India from 0.6 million to 10 million in the next few years. Dr. Gadgil will describe the technology and WaterHealth International's approach for its implementation in poor rural communities.

More about WaterHealth International can be found at:

www.waterhealth.com

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