John Feighery*, mWater, New York, United States Track: Business Presentation Topic: Business models in a Web 2.0 environment Presentation Type: Startup Pitch Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School Room: C-Rotunda Room Date: 2012-09-15 01:45 PM – 03:45 PM Last modified: 2012-09-16

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Thanks in part to the Millennium Development Goals, communities across the planet are now able to provide improved water supplies to their residents. Instead of collecting surface water, water can be collected from a source, stored in tanks, disinfected, and distributed to households by the thousands. Unfortunately, most of these communities cannot monitor the safety of their systems--putting thousands at risk for disease outbreaks.
mWater provides local capacity for water testing. Using emerging low-cost methods, we enable local communities to test their own drinking water for contamination. We are currently working with computer to create an Android-based mobile phone app to make the kits even easier to use. The app will automatically photograph test results, count the bacteria colonies, and save the data for uploading. Emerging open source platforms such as Open Data Kit provide an easy and scalable solution to move data from the local user level to the cloud for analysis and mapping.
Each community’s mobile test results contribute to a regional network for monitoring and response to water-based threats to health. On a broader level, the network is an epidemiological tool for resource allocation and policy-making for national governments and international organizations.
Our long-term vision is to develop and validate even cheaper and simpler technologies for water quality testing, bringing the cost below $1 and creating a networked community of water quality testers in low-resource areas of the world. By combining technology and the free flow of data, we hope to reduce the suffering caused by diarrhea and other preventable waterborne diseases.