A recent trip to Africa fueled my thinking about some of the world’s broader socioeconomic problems. Here we are in the age of self-driving cars, 3D printing and autonomous drones, and we still have 3 billion people living in poverty. Moreover, 844 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.
Sadly, the lack of clean and accessible water not only causes about half a million deaths a year globally, but it also perpetuates the poverty cycle. Even more alarming is the UN’s latest report on global warming. The potential impact of going over the projected 1.5-degree Celsius temperature increase will allegedly be much more devastating than previously thought. According to the same report, should the bump in temperature occur, the world’s food supply could become less secure and 400 million more people will be affected by a lack of clean water. No water, no crops, no food and no economic growth.
However, this H2O epidemic is not limited to remote areas and developing countries. According to a 2018 study, approximately 21 million U.S. citizens relied on water systems that violated “health-based quality standards” in 2015. This is not surprising, as 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated stormwater, sewage and industrial waste are dumped into U.S. bodies of water each year.
If you’ve been reading my Forbes columns, you know that my passion lies in emerging technologies, especially the convergence of the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning, blockchain, fog computing and others. As I thought more about the state of water accessibility, conservation and pollution, I wondered: Why aren’t we doing more with our technologies to solve this dire problem that affects everyone?
I did a little digging on what is already being done and was pleasantly surprised to see signs of hope. Perhaps the most famous example is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is actively involved with government agencies, the private sector and technology leaders to accelerate innovations in non-sewered sanitation technology and service delivery, with a focus on densely populated areas of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Similarly, the Akvo Foundation is delivering mobile-based data collection tools to more than 200 organizations in 70 countries, helping governments, nonprofits and communities to remotely manage water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives. For example, Akvo worked with the World Bank and local government entities to pilot its solutions in Punjab, India, a region that’s one of the worst in the country in terms of its water quality. The pilot proved the viability of Avko’s solutions for crowdsourcing data from citizens and relaying it to government authorities to enable better, faster responses on issues with water services.
Further, Oxford University, in partnership with UNICEF and national and local government agencies, launched a spin-off organization called OxWater, which delivers IoT-enabled smart handpumps across rural communities in Africa and Asia. These handpumps use sensors and cellular transmitters to remotely monitor groundwater levels, ensuring that people in the most remote areas have enough clean, safe water.
We also see commercial organizations getting involved, such as Watergen, which has pioneered “water-from-air” solutions that extract clean drinking water directly from the atmosphere. Most recently, this technology was deployed in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi, where it will support the region’s goal of becoming a “leading farm produce exporter.”
These are just a few examples of how technology is tackling our global water crisis, and we are just getting started.
Guido Jouret, chief digital officer for ABB (which explores additional, unique applications of emerging technologies for water conservation), recently calculated that rainfall could potentially fulfill up to half the water needs in the United States. I’ve learned that rainwater collection already serves many non-potable uses such as irrigation, lavatory plumbing, laundry, cooling towers and more, but because of sanitation concerns, many applications are illegal or regulated in a number of states.
Nonetheless, Guido and others point out advances in digital technologies that remotely monitor rooftop rainwater filtration systems could address the sanitation issues and even enable preventive maintenance, such as dispatching repair personnel to fix household systems before they break down.
Conservation Through Co-Economies
Looking back at these examples, there is one theme that appears in many initiatives: partner ecosystems. Notice how these organizations are working with a host of vertical and horizontal technology providers, governments, nonprofits, academia and other hyper-local experts. I call this the “co-economy,” where partner ecosystems closely collaborate not only to deliver disruptive solutions but also to scale those solutions globally.
The idea is to prove a solution’s viability on the local level — like OxWater first did in Kenya — and then replicate the results across regions, continents and even the world. This approach is also used in the business realm, where organizations in similar, adjacent or complementary markets co-innovate, co-develop, co-implement and co-support scalable digital solutions. So why not use it to drive corporate social responsibility?
But for optimal solution scalability and impact, these partner ecosystems must grow and establish interconnected tech hubs in the regions of the world they service — whether they are providing solutions for delivering clean water, combatting poverty or something else. This creates a network multiplier effect that allows homegrown ideas to be implemented at scale.
While it’s a daunting task to provide clean, safe water for every individual on earth, I believe it’s far from impossible. The technological breakthroughs are here today to do so — the challenge is getting co-economies onboard for expanding them beyond the hyper-local level.
To achieve these, we must understand that water conservation isn’t just the responsibility of NGOs and governments — it should be a corporate priority as well. Therefore, companies need to investigate how their own solutions and expertise can contribute to solving this global challenge, whether you are providing a new piece of water-filtering technology, an innovative farming process or something never before imagined. I encourage you to start including such social goals among your organization’s KPIs while looking for ways to implement business best practices in a social good context.
We have the technology. Let’s build the willpower to use it to make our world — and our most precious resource, our water — better and safer for all.
This article was originally published in Forbes.