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Water Technology Assistant - cellphones supporting access to clean water

Challenges Entered: 

The WTA is a cell-phone based application which provides an enhanced and localized interface to the world's water technology resources in a format that field workers and villagers can use. Much of the technical content is from existing online resources reformatted and rewritten for small screens. The WTA focusses on maintaining the vital connections which help water projects get started, get funded, and succeed at a technical and social level.

Groups all over the world are working together to make clean drinking water and sanitation available. In many cases, the know-how to supply these essential services at an affordable price exists. What's needed is the support to deploy this know-how in every village and town. That problem comes down to figuring out what might work in a given location, and finding available engineering expertise to implement it, or training for people to do it themselves.

Akvo is a leader in applying information technology to the water and sanitation problems of the world. Akvo works to make three connections: between those who need knowledge and expertise, between funders and projects which need support, and between funded projects and their sponsors.

The WTA provides support in five critical areas:

1> Organized links to cell-phone readable water technology resources to help people understand what is possible.

2> A "reporting" mode where pictures and video can be time/date stamped and digitally signed with GPS coordinates for later upload to provide proven project updates.

3> Web-services based interfaces to Akvo Really Simple Reporting for project updates.

4> Checklist and FAQ-format implementation tips for specific water technologies to help people get their systems running in the field.

5> Interactive maps which show known deployments of specific water technologies so people can find and visit a working system of a given type in their area.

Everything here is technologically feasible. It just needs to be built.

Project Details
Project url: 
http://akvo.org
Project Assessment
Financial support: 
No
Sustainability Model: 
This application represents our first request for funds to support the launch of a spin-off Akvo technology project. The project will be led by a new small team who will work independently from, but in close liaison with, the core Akvo team. Once expanded through a feasibility study, we will use our existing networks to help the venture secure additional development funds. We view both USAID and Netsquared's involvement as crucial in attracting the right kind of talent and input needed to develop the tool for our partners.
Expertise needed: 
Technical Expertise: Cell phone software engineering, cell phone business models in Africa and Asia, geolocation services and so on. All the technology is relatively straight forwards, but all the help that can be focussed on the project can be wisely used.
Project goals: 
1> Prototypes of specific subsets of the WTA, probably starting with the library.2> Initial field testing in one language in limited areas3> Build out of the rest of the WTA in that same language area 4> Further terraced deployment of the system, focussing on the areas which are being used most successfully in the field. The goal, at all times, is to build what people are ready to use.Exactly which systems are build and deployed first depends in part on what technology resources are available to build them. There is an interplay between resources and priorities here.
Identified Obstacles: 
Network bandwidth.Mass translation.Content availability.We hope to minimize all of these problems by tight focus and technological conservatism. This is a bleeding edge *tool* but it does not use any bleeding edge technology, and the loads from (say) video can be kept to a minimum initially.The global cell phone network is spreading much faster than sanitation technology is. The entire world will have 3G access long before it has toilets - the network is going in first, with basic infrastructure following. Network access is *not* the throttle point in the sanitation field.
Submitted by AKVO on March 17, 2010 - 5:20pm

Remote Project Monitoring with Mobile Phones

Submitted by Brian Mc Fadden (not verified) on May 28, 2009 - 3:07pm.

I would be very interested to hear more about how this pans out. We currently use mobile phones (mainly to send pictures) for remote project monitoring in insecure parts of Afghanistan and Somalia. We train community members en masse how to use the phones and then send them out to monitor the implementation of their projects. They send us photos and we compile a database of  project progress. Every now and again we sample a project and make a spot check.  Our donors (ECHO, BPRM) seem to be satisfied that the approach is working well.

Keep up the good work.

Brian

terrific and very much needed project

Submitted by jcravens on January 4, 2009 - 4:02am.

I think this is a terrific and very much needed project - and that's why I voted for it. Access to clean water is a huge issue everywhere in the developing world, and employing cell phones to help address this issue seems like a perfect match. I think you should post about it to the Aid Workers Network.

great

Submitted by austinvishal on December 5, 2008 - 11:07am.

its nice to see many people correlate mobile phones with environment. i hope the water problem is reduced to some extent by using these mobile technologies.its a nice one.

great thinking.

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