Dubai launches Humanitarian Accelerators to find technology-driven solutions for education, water and refugee poverty.
World / Technology / Innovation / Technology The Humanitarian Accelerators are launched in collaboration with Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiative and Dubai Future Accelerators.
The Dubai government launched Humanitarian Accelerators to bring together skilled and innovative professionals in the cause of aiding the humanitarian sector.
The DFA programme was launched in July 2016 to bring together government entities in Dubai and companies working on cutting-edge technologies, to accelerate the building of a relationship between companies and government.
Till date 65 international companies have participated in the Dubai Future Accelerators programme, and a memorandum of understanding has been signed with 47 others.
The Humanitarian Accelerators will address four key challenges, in the areas of education, clean water, economic opportunities for refugees and quality of online reading material and content in Arabic.
The Accelerators aim to provide quality education to all children, including refugees, through e-learning tools and innovative mechanisms, such as accessible websites, that enable young students to access interactive educational platforms regardless of where they are located.
There are overwhelming obstacles facing young students, especially those living as refugees, in gaining a formal education.
MBRGI has utilised conventional solutions to provide clean drinking water to over 10 million people.
Harnessing technology to expand this reach is the next step.

Feasterville family heads to Kenya to bring fresh water to school children.
The Gasperis want to not only help with water, but also to raise funds for the students’ educational programs.
Before the Gasperis leave for Kenya, they hope to raise money for their organization.
They hope to be able to drill four wells each year.
Chris has made three visits to the East African nation with Ashley.
The couple sold their home in the Feasterville section of Lower Southampton and the family is now living with Chris’s parents, Bruce and Mary Gasperi, in Northeast Philadelphia.
They hope to depart for Kenya in mid August.
They plan to use their savings for the first year to support themselves and their three children, and drill wells at two different primary schools that serve about 500 children each, ages 4 to 14.
They plan to stay five years or more if Ekenywa grows, Chris said.
Chris said he didn’t realize when he married Ashley seven years ago that he would be heading to Africa, but he knew, even growing up, that he would like to try working somewhere away from home.

Impact Water: providing safe drinking water solutions at scale.
As operations at Impact Carbon progressed, there was a realisation of the need to simultaneously introduce water purification systems.
“We found that we could also look into introducing water purification systems as a channel to reduce consumption of wood based fuel so instead of having to boil water and use lots of wood which has a negative impact on the environment, households and institutions could use purification systems,” Mark Turgesen, Director of Impact Carbon and Impact Water in Uganda explains.
The water is then filtered to remove dirt and large pathogens.
This was the case for Mr Adam Kakembo, a teacher and sanitary master at Kawempe Muslim Secondary School in Kampala.
Kawempe now has three Impact Water systems and consumes about 4500 litres of water a day.
Kakembo says safe drinking water is now always available, the system is energy efficient and affordable; the costs can be met within the confines of the school’s budget.
This is possible because when business commenced, Impact Water sought a new way to make the water system affordable for schools.
Since Impact Water’s inception, 650,000 students in 1300 schools have been able to access safe drinking water thanks to its systems.
“Down the road five to ten years from now, I hope that with these meaningful engagements – with school associations for example – that safe drinking water will be expected in the school and that when a parent takes their child to school they know safe drinking water will be available just like food,” Turgesen says.

Environment This Team of Researchers Just Figured Out How to Desalinate Water with Solar Power.
New solar technology, however, might’ve just changed all that.
collected a cup of water from the ocean, then poured the salt water into a bowl.
After a few days in the sun, if I remember correctly, there was a film of salt in the bowl and the cup was nearly full of fresh water.
There are somewhere around 20,000 plants in various countries all over the world, but essentially boiling billions of gallons of water and collecting the condensation takes a lot of heat, which takes a lot of energy.
“Direct solar desalination could be a game changer for some of the estimated 1 billion people who lack access to clean drinking water,” said Qilin Li, a water treatment expert and one of the authors of the study.
“This off-grid technology is capable of providing sufficient clean water for family use in a compact footprint, and it can be scaled up to provide water for larger communities.” Like most great inventions, though, it’s not entirely new–instead, it improves on the technology already in use.
With membrane distillation, heated salt water and cold fresh water flow on opposite sides of a membrane.
“By adding low-cost, commercially available nanoparticles to a porous membrane, NEWT has essentially turned the membrane itself into a one-sided heating element that alone heats the water to drive membrane distillation.” Right now, it’s not much good.
The amount of heat, of course, will only increase as the membrane gets bigger.

Benzinger: What’s in your drinking water?
“What’s in my Water?” allows New York state residents to search the source and quality of their drinking water or view a map of potential threats to drinking water in their area.
By making information about water accessible and easy to understand — something the state and federal governments have neglected — the New York Public Interest Research Group is making it easier for people to ensure their right to clean water is being met.
“NYPIRG set out about a year ago to begin this project because we think that access to clean drinking water is not a privilege, and that access to clear information about water shouldn’t be either,” said Megan Ahearn, a program director at NYPIRG.
And New York state residents are at a disadvantage if they do not have the information required to be active constituents and hold government agencies accountable.
The NYPIRG tool contains data on regulated and unregulated contaminants in water supplies.
Residents need to be aware of where their water comes from.
Andy Mendes | Digital Design Editor According to “What’s in my Water?,” there hasn’t been a violation in Skaneateles Lake since 2009, when coliform levels reached the maximum allowed amount.
People who have impaired immune systems may consider boiling their water before drinking it if microorganisms are present in their water supply.
“What’s in My Water?” can make these big decisions easier.

Environment This Team of Researchers Just Figured Out How to Desalinate Water with Solar Power.
New solar technology, however, might’ve just changed all that.
collected a cup of water from the ocean, then poured the salt water into a bowl.
After a few days in the sun, if I remember correctly, there was a film of salt in the bowl and the cup was nearly full of fresh water.
There are somewhere around 20,000 plants in various countries all over the world, but essentially boiling billions of gallons of water and collecting the condensation takes a lot of heat, which takes a lot of energy.
“Direct solar desalination could be a game changer for some of the estimated 1 billion people who lack access to clean drinking water,” said Qilin Li, a water treatment expert and one of the authors of the study.
“This off-grid technology is capable of providing sufficient clean water for family use in a compact footprint, and it can be scaled up to provide water for larger communities.” Like most great inventions, though, it’s not entirely new–instead, it improves on the technology already in use.
With membrane distillation, heated salt water and cold fresh water flow on opposite sides of a membrane.
“By adding low-cost, commercially available nanoparticles to a porous membrane, NEWT has essentially turned the membrane itself into a one-sided heating element that alone heats the water to drive membrane distillation.” Right now, it’s not much good.
The amount of heat, of course, will only increase as the membrane gets bigger.

Cryptosporidium.
Kewaunee County and its neighbors have a serious groundwater contamination problem.
A recent study not only found that wells in areas of greater soil depth were being contaminated with dangerous pathogens, but that up to 60 percent of wells tested were affected, nearly doubling the tally from previous studies.
In 2014, Clean Wisconsin, along with Midwest Environmental Advocates and local citizens, filed a Safe Drinking Water Act petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking for help for Kewaunee County residents.
Kewaunee County’s geology makes it vulnerable to groundwater contamination from manure spreading on the landscape.
Kewaunee County residents deserve a robust and thorough effort from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to address drinking water contamination.
For much of the past year, the DNR has pointed to a new set of protections being drafted as their effort to address drinking water contamination from livestock manure.
Access to clean, safe drinking water is every Wisconsin citizens’ right.
Through these protections, we think the DNR can reduce the risk of drinking water contamination by: Putting limits on when, where and how manure can be spread.
By writing strong rules, the DNR can help citizens with contaminated drinking water have safe wells that draw clean water while giving farmers the tools to effectively manage their livestock byproduct.

Access to clean water is a basic human right, but it can be tough for average people to know how safe their water really is. A new tool launched by NYPIRG, however, can help to fill the void of government agencies when it comes to informing constituents about water safety. “What’s in my Water?” allows New York state residents to search the source and quality of their drinking water or view a map of potential threats to drinking water in their area. By making information about water accessible and easy to understand — something the state and federal governments have neglected — the New York Public Interest Research Group is making it easier for people to ensure their right to clean water is being met. “NYPIRG set out about a year ago to begin this project because we think that access to clean drinking water is not a privilege, and that access to clear information about water shouldn’t be either,” said Megan Ahearn, a program director at NYPIRG. Government transparency is necessary for active and conscientious citizenship, especially when it comes to environmental issues. And New York state residents are at a disadvantage if they do not have the information required to be active constituents and hold government agencies accountable. Andy Mendes | Digital Design Editor “Whether it be industrial business that is affecting public water, or if there is a chemical in a water test…

Providing safe drinking water solutions at scale.
When non-profit Impact Carbon was first introduced in Uganda, it sought ways of advancing the production and quality of improved, clean-burning cookstoves as a way to mitigate carbon emissions and reduce indoor air pollution.
As operations at Impact Carbon progressed, there was a realisation of the need to introduce water purification systems as another means to reduce the consumption of wood-based fuel, which was being used in large quantities to boil water.
Impact Carbon decided that the idea would work best as a business project, and should focus on schools.
Buying the systems would encourage schools to own the responsibility of carefully utilising and maintaining them.
The idea birthed Impact Water, a social business which was registered in 2015.
Mark Turgesen, Director of Impact Water in Uganda says, “The response is, ‘when can I get started’?
He explains that before the introduction of these systems, the staff “would boil 300 litres for the boys and about 200 litres of water for the girls in the students’ kitchens.
We would consume about three to four lorries of firewood per week.” Impact Water put in place a credit facility that allows schools to pay over a two- and five-year long-term period, each child paying an average of Shs 800 per term.
Since the company’s inception, 650,000 students in 1,300 schools have benefitted from access to safe drinking water thanks to its systems.

Kewaunee County and its neighbors have a serious groundwater contamination problem.
A recent study not only found that wells in areas of greater soil depth were being contaminated with dangerous pathogens, but that up to 60 percent of wells tested were affected, nearly doubling the tally from previous studies.
In 2014, Clean Wisconsin, along with Midwest Environmental Advocates and local citizens, filed a Safe Drinking Water Act petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking for help for Kewaunee County residents.
Kewaunee County’s geology makes it vulnerable to groundwater contamination from manure spreading on the landscape.
Kewaunee County residents deserve a robust and thorough effort from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to address drinking water contamination.
For much of the past year, the DNR has pointed to a new set of protections being drafted as their effort to address drinking water contamination from livestock manure.
Access to clean, safe drinking water is every Wisconsin citizens’ right.
For too long, too many citizens in Kewaunee County and elsewhere in the state have been denied that right.
Through these protections, we think the DNR can reduce the risk of drinking water contamination by: Putting limits on when, where and how manure can be spread.
By writing strong rules, the DNR can help citizens with contaminated drinking water have safe wells that draw clean water while giving farmers the tools to effectively manage their livestock byproduct.