Safe water with certainty.

​

PotaVida is lowering the cost of providing safe water in disaster relief and development contexts, while automating recording of usage behavior to enable effective monitoring and evaluation.

PotaVida solves 2 key problems: point-of-use water treatment is too expensive; and, aid agencies can’t easily tell what’s working in the field.

​

There are 700 million people without access to safe water, resulting in preventable disease and death. Aid agencies and governments need a lower cost method of disinfecting water reliably that does not depend on consistent supply chains.

​

PotaVida’s Smart Solar Purifier consists of a 10 liter hydration bag with an electronic dosage indicator that shows when the water is safe to drink and records usage data.

​

Their technology uses the proven and highly-effective process of solar disinfection (SODIS) to reduce the cost of water treatment and eliminate the need for replacing filters and chemicals. Each batch of water is ready in as little as 2 hours in sunny conditions, or up to 2 days during the rainy season. The product has a shelf life of 5 years and design lifetime of 1 year, making it an ideal disaster relief supply.

​

To use, simply fill the bag with water, place it in the sun, push a button, and wait for the indicator’s green LED to show that the water is safe.

In addition, more reliable and detailed usage data is needed to effectively monitor, evaluate, and improve aid programs in the field.

Aid agencies mostly conduct in-person surveys to collect usage data on water purification systems. Surveying a household takes 20 to 30 minutes, and the resulting self-reported data is biased.

​

PotaVida’s disinfection monitor electronically records its own usage, including attempted/incorrect usage as well as completed cycles, thus capturing the total water disinfected by each unit. This data can be wirelessly downloaded to a smartphone with a simple attachment, and tagged with GPS information before being sent to a centralized database. Aid agencies can see usage in real-time down to the level of individual users and their locations.

PotaVida