In early 2023, The Coca-Cola Foundation partnered with Imagine H2O to make water innovation more accessible in water-stressed and climate-impacted communities. Today the program announced its first series of innovation pilots.
In partnership with The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF), Imagine H2O announced a series of pilot projects that will accelerate sustainable access to safe water globally. The Sustainable Access Solution Fund unlocks targeted grants and technical support to help communities de-risk and adopt innovative solutions that boost water supply, mitigate pollution and strengthen climate resilience.
Building on Imagine H2O’s ongoing pilot initiatives supported by philanthropic and public sector partners including Oceankind, Enterprise Singapore and Asian Development Bank, this partnership with TCCF creates more opportunities for innovators and their customers to overcome the barriers to testing new technologies in emerging markets. TCCF’s support doubled Imagine H2O’s annual pilot funding budget in 2023.
In this first phase, four water technology startups tackling a range of water challenges received support from Imagine H2O to deploy their solutions with utilities in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Each project was a product of Imagine H2O’s extensive in-country pilot design process from field research, customer buy-in, and technical review. Four additional projects will be announced by December.
“As part of The Coca-Cola Foundation’s commitment to improving sustainable access to safe water, it is vital that we help de-risk the pathways for solutions to successfully be trialed and scaled,” said Saadia Madsbjerg, President of the Coca-Cola Foundation. “The innovation pilots Imagine H2O will be supporting will help us move forward in that effort, accelerating impact in water efficiency, access and safety for underserved communities.”
Learn more about these four innovation pilots below:
Cloud-based water quality measurement in low water pressure networks in the Philippines
- Utilities in the Philippines struggle with infrequent testing of their water quality across various points in the network due to reliance on manual sampling methods and low-pressure networks.
- TracWater will deploy portable, battery-powered sensors to conduct real-time water quality analysis and cloud-based data monitoring for two different utilities, informing water quality and service coverage improvements.
Village-level water management with gram panchayats in India for improved water resilience
- Villages across India facing a groundwater crisis due to over extraction lack the resources to design and implement water security plans needed for long-term, sustainable groundwater management.
- Ekatvam Innovations will trial their digital water governance tool in up to three rural communities, empowering the villages with the tools to collect, manage and analyse the data necessary to design actionable and lasting water security plans.
Water ATM-based mini-piped water networks for informal settlements in Bangladesh
- Residents of Korail, one of Dhaka’s largest informal settlements, lack piped water access and have to rely primarily on costly bottled water from private vendors.
- Drinkwell will conduct a feasibility study in partnership with the city’s utility and local community partners to assess the technical and financial viability of installing small-piped networks from their water ATM to deliver potable water directly to households.
AI assistant for water operations and maintenance in the Philippines
- Utilities across Southeast Asia are often overloaded with day-to-day operations and maintenance tasks to manage their assets and networks, often resulting in delayed responses to incidents that disrupt the utility’s services.
- TeamSolve will pilot their AI-powered O&M assistant tool to help a medium-sized utility address knowledge blind-spots while on-site and streamline field operations, improving the utility’s overall operational efficiency and workforce resilience.
Learn more about the Sustainable Access Solution Fund here
About The Coca-Cola Foundation
The Coca-Cola Foundation’s mission is to make a difference in communities around the world where The Coca-Cola Company operates and where our employees live and work. We support transformative ideas and institutions that address complex global challenges and that leave a measurable and lasting impact. Our giving is focused on sustainable access to safe water, climate resilience and disaster risk preparedness and response, circular economy, economic empowerment, and causes impacting our hometown community. Since its inception in 1984, The Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded grants of over $1.5 billion in service of its mandate to strengthen communities across the world.
About Imagine H2O
Imagine H2O is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation for entrepreneurs building transformative solutions for the future of water. The organisation’s water innovation programs provide startups with the resources, insight, and visibility to launch and scale water solutions. By partnering with industry and policy experts and a global network of customers and investors, Imagine H2O has become a proven path to market for emerging water technology businesses. Since 2009, Imagine H2O has supported 175 startups who have deployed their solutions in 50+ countries and have raised more than $850M in investment.
Contact:
Annamarie Martin
Senior Program Associate, Imagine H2O Asia
annamarie@imagineh2o.org
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