Spotlight
Globe: Grand Challenge
| USF News
The Patel Grand Challenge invites innovators from the developing world to create a "Smart Pot" that purifies contaminated water and has a similar size and weight to a traditional jerrycan.
Photo courtesy of the USF Patel Center
It may be one of the most basic components of human life, but for nearly 900 million people around the world, clean water remains out of reach. And leaders at the USF Patel School of Global Sustainability are working to change that.
In November, the school announced the first Patel Grand Challenge, a challenge to inventors in developing nations to create a low-cost and easy-to-use water purification device that could save millions from the perils of contaminated drinking water.
According to world health officials, one in eight people do not have access to safe drinking water, and more than half the diseases worldwide are caused by polluted water.
The Patel Grand Challenge, launched in partnership with the International Water Association, seeks the invention of a technologically-advanced yet inexpensive "Smart Pot" that would automatically disinfect water at the point of collection.
Noted global philanthropist Kiran C. Patel, who has devoted much of his life to providing better healthcare to people in developing nations, says the project will most benefit people who live in isolated communities where there are no water treatment facilities. It is in those villages where people continue to gather water as they have for decades: walking miles to a water source and carrying it home in a jug.
This year's Patel Grand Challenge is intended to be the first of many competitions the center will hold each year to generate tangible solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. This year's winning proposal will receive up to $100,000. Working alongside the Patel Center for Global Solutions, the winner will build and develop a prototype of the Smart Pot.