Water Wars: Refreshing Partnership: Coca-Cola Teams Up With Slingshot to Deliver Clean Water

http://www.washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8935&Itemid=514

Refreshing Partnership: Coca-Cola Teams
Up With Slingshot to Deliver Clean Water

by Anna Gawel

Coca-Cola is taking its mission to quench the world’s thirst to a whole new level, supporting technology that could turn raw sewage into clean drinking water.

The world’s largest beverage company is teaming up with DEKA Research and Development and its president, Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, to bring Kamen’s “Slingshot” water purification system to developing communities that lack access to potable water.

The partnership is part of Coca-Cola’s larger sustainability push, which includes a goal to replenish 100 percent of the water used in its beverages and their production by 2020.

An intriguing partnership of a different kind brought the story of Slingshot to the diplomatic community in Washington, D.C.

Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan opened up his stately residence for a presentation on the project, co-hosted by Monaco’s ambassador, Gilles Noghès. Monaco supports various water initiatives through the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, which aims to protect the environment and encourage sustainable development.

In a testament to the power of personal connections, Tan learned about Slingshot from Noghès’s wife Ellen, who’s active in supporting breast cancer awareness and other causes (also see “Monaco’s Ellen Noghès Forms Cancer Support Group for Diplomatic Spouses” in the November 2012 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

“When I first heard about this great invention called Slingshot from my friend Ellen, I couldn’t believe it was possible to turn dirty water into clean drinking water and I had to see it for myself,” Tan told guests at the Dec. 5 reception. “So I invited my dear friend Muhtar to participate by hosting this event.”

Muhtar would be Muhtar Kent, the Turkish-American chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Co., who told the group through a video message that he believed Slingshot would be “transformational in improving the health and quality of life of people around the world.”

“Water is becoming a scarce, valuable commodity. Today, more than 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water,” Kent said. “Water is the lifeblood of our business and our commitment is to ensure we’re doing our part to replenish the water we use and give it back to communities around the world.”

To that end, Beatriz Perez, Coca-Cola’s first-ever chief sustainability officer and a 16-year veteran of the company, was on hand to explain how the iconic brand was working to promote “water, women and well being.”

For instance, one initiative, called 5by20, seeks to empower 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2020, joining forces with UN Women and numerous government and private sector partners on three continents. Since 2005, Coca-Cola has also conducted nearly 400 community water projects in more than 90 countries, working hand in hand with partners such as the World Wildlife Fund, USAID and CARE.

Likewise, Slingshot is a multi-pronged collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank Group, Africare and, of course, Kamen’s research company.

Though the match between Kamen’s water purification system and the beverage giant seems like a natural fit, it took years for the pieces to come together. “I think I brought it to Coke after I exhausted every other possibility,” Kamen joked.

In fact, the prolific American inventor — who, in addition to the Segway scooter, is the brainchild behind the insulin pump and portable dialysis machine — didn’t even set out to create a water purifying system.

His original intention a decade ago was to create a kidney dialysis machine that could sit at the home bedside of patients with renal failure to improve their quality of life. Such machines though need highly sterilized, medical-grade water every day to operate.

So Kamen set about constructing a machine that could turn tap water into medical-grade water — and soon realized that his innovation had much broader applications.

“Besides helping a few thousand people have a better quality of life, it could help a few billion people dying of [waterborne] diseases,” Kamen said.

But he still faced the problem of how to deliver this technology to the remote, rural parts of the world that needed it the most.

Kamen explained that many of his traditional corporate partners operated in countries that could afford sophisticated medical products — where safe drinking water was not an issue.

He finally, and fortuitously, stumbled onto Coca-Cola, which was eager to raise its environmental profile and, more importantly, had a presence in more than 200 nations around the world.

Kamen explained that Slingshot derives its name from the simple but effective weapon that David used to defeat Goliath. “It’s a little machine you can put anywhere and it can turn any kind of water into clean, safe drinking water,” he said.

Slingshot boils and evaporates any dirty water source — ocean water, river water, raw sewage, even arsenic-tainted water — and, through vapor-compression distillation, allows the pure water to condense and then be collected.

According to a Coca-Cola press release, one machine can purify up to 300,000 liters of water a year — enough daily drinking water for roughly 300 people — producing 10 gallons of clean water an hour while consuming less than one kilowatt of electricity, less than the amount of power needed for a handheld hairdryer.

Technology to convert unusable water into safe water has been the gold standard in addressing the looming water scarcity crisis. Kamen says his portable, low-energy machine — one of many variants on the market — is not a panacea. It is targeted for people with limited access to water and not intended to take the place of major water plants or other infrastructure. And although it only requires a small amount of energy to run, it still requires electricity, whether plugged into a local grid or powered by some other source — something not all communities have.

Kamen is also working with the communities to ensure that locals — not foreigners — are able to operate the machines. And he’s been working with Coca-Cola to scale up the technology while lowering its costs.

“For years we looked for a partner who could help us get the Slingshot machine into production, scale it up, bring down the cost curve, and deliver and operate the units in the places where the need is greatest,” Kamen said. “Now we have that partner with Coca-Cola, which brings unparalleled knowledge of working, operating and partnering in the most remote places of the world.”

In 2011, the company held a successful field trial of Slingshot at five schools outside Accra, Ghana, generating 140,000 liters of clean drinking water for 1,500 school children over a six-month span.

In 2013, the plan is to deliver millions of liters of clean drinking water to schools, health clinics and community centers in rural regions of Africa and Latin America — with the ultimate goal of adding more than half a billion liters of clean drinking water to the global water supply each year.

Though Slingshot is still in the early stages of mass distribution, hopes are high that the little machine can put a dent in a huge crisis.

Even though more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, only 1 percent of it is ready to drink, according to the World Health Organization, which estimates that more than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene-related causes.

In fact, almost one fifth of the world’s population (about 1.2 billion people) live in areas where water is physically scarce. One quarter of the global population also live in developing countries that face water shortages due to a lack of infrastructure to fetch water from rivers and aquifers, according to WHO.

The problem will only get worse with the unpredictable weather patterns spawned by climate change. The State Department predicts that by 2025, nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will be living under water-stressed conditions, including roughly 2 billion people who will face absolute water scarcity.

Water scarcity touches on everything from international relations — conflicts typically erupt over access to resources — to women’s rights, because it’s often women and girls who spend hours each day collecting water, foregoing other economic and education opportunities.

Tackling water scarcity will require imagination and collective action, according to Coca-Cola’s chief. “Our sustainability initiatives have reinforced over and over again our belief in the power of collaboration,” Kent said. “Global challenges like water scarcity are bigger than any one company or organization and require us to think and partner beyond our own circles. Only through collective action and innovation will we achieve results where it’s most important.”

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About the Author

Anna Gawel is the managing editor for The Washington Diplomat and a contributing writer for the Diplomatic Pouch. 

Water Wars. More precious then....... February 2013

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/25/the-coming-water-wars/?hpt=hp_bn2

February 25th, 2013

08:52 AM ET

The coming water wars?

For more What in the World, watch GPS on Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET.

By Global Public Square staff

Imagine a large body of water – about the size of the Dead Sea – simply disappearing. It sounds like a science fiction movie. But it’s not. It’s happening in real life – and we've only just found out.

A pioneering study from NASA and the University of California Irvine shows how the Middle East is losing its fresh water reserves. As you can see from the satellite imagery in the video, we’re going from blues and greens, to yellows and reds: that’s 144 cubic kilometers of lost water between 2003 and 2009. What do we mean by “lost water”? Most of it comes from below the Earth’s surface, from water trapped in rocks. In times of drought, we tend to drill for water by constructing wells and pumps. But the Earth has a finite supply. NASA’s scientists say pumping for water is the equivalent of using up your bank savings. And that bank account is dwindling.

This could have serious implications. Conflicts over water are as old as the story of Noah – in 3,000 BC. The Pacific Institute lists 225 such conflicts through history. What’s fascinating is that nearly half of those conflicts took place in the last two decades. Are we going to see a new era of wars fought over water?

Consider that NASA’s study is of one of the most volatile regions in the world. We tend to think of the Middle East and its upheavals as defined by oil. Perhaps in the future it will be defined by water. We often talk of a world of nuclear haves and have-nots, but a world of water haves and have-nots could be even more dangerous.

Part of the problem is that the world’s needs have changed. Look at the population boom. We’ve gone from 4 billion people in 1975, to around 7 billion today. The United Nations projects we will hit 9 billion by 2050. Meanwhile, as India, China, and Africa continue to add millions to their middle classes, global demand for all kinds of food and products will increase. All of those products cost money – except for water, which we like to think of as abundant and free. Yet water is the resource we need to worry most about. According to the World Health Organization, more than 780 million people – that’s two-and-a-half times the population of the United States – lack access to clean water. More than 3 million people die every year from this shortage. As our needs expand, so will the shortfall.

What can be done? Most of our water is actually wasted – and the United States is actually one of the worst culprits. We can change that. Singapore already treats sewage water to convert it into clean drinking water. We need to consider large-scale desalinization, where the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are world leaders. And remember, agriculture uses up as much as 70 percent of water. We need to fund research into more effective crops. A village in India reportedly set a world record this month for rice produced in a single hectare. How? Simply by changing when the seedlings were planted, a process which saves water.

Perhaps most simple and effective would be to put some kind of a price on water – so that people use it with a greater sense of efficiency and care.

All kinds of innovations are underway.

Next month the United Nations will mark World Water Day and the international year of water cooperation. It’s a good time to start thinking about big global measures to regulate the world’s most important resource.

Post by:CNN's Jason Miks

Water Wars: Peru’s engineers ‘make’ their own drinkable water in response to shortages outside of Lima March 2013

By Agence France-Presse

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 5:46 EDT

The message emblazoned on a billboard outside the Peruvian capital sounds almost too good to be true: drinkable water for anyone who wants some in this arid village.

Even more intriguingly, the fresh, pure water on offer along a busy road in this dusty town some 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Lima, has been extracted, as if by magic, from the humid air.

Within the enormous, raised, double-paneled billboard inviting all takers is concealed a tube, wires and mechanical equipment that draws the water from the air and purifies it.

Inhabitants from far and wide who flock here toting liter bottles and buckets say this purified water is a wonderful alternative to the stagnant well water that used to be the only water source for many in this town.

“The water that we get in our houses very often is dirty. By contrast, here we have good water that we can use and drink without having to worry,” Francisco Quilca, 52 told AFP.

His wife Wilma Flores says that it gives her peace of mind, “knowing that the water is disinfected. We can drink it and we can use it to wash our vegetables in,” she said.

The United Nations on Friday marked its World Water Day initiative which aims to cut water-borne diseases like cholera, dysentery and diarrhea around the world.

It is a perennial problem in Lima and the surrounding area, where about one million of the more than eight million people lack reliably clean water.

Faced with the ongoing water shortage, some innovators at Peru’s University for Engineering and Technology hit upon the novel idea.

“If the problem is water, we’ll make some,” said Alejandro Aponte, one of the people who worked on the project, which was both an engineering feat and a marketing challenge.

Enough water is sucked from the air by this huge contraption located on the edge of a busy highway in Peru to fill a 100-liter tank each day.

The system required a location where the humidity was at least 30 percent — not a problem in Lima, where the dewpoint sometimes hits an unbearably sticky 98 percent, despite the barren landscape where there is very little evident vegetation and not very much actual rainfall.

The interdisciplinary effort required figuring out not only how to draw moisture from the air on a large enough scale, but how to let people know that the water was available for their consumption.

Engineers on the project have installed five generators to suck moisture out of the air and convert it into liquid. The purification structure is sandwiched between two huge billboards which advertise the availability of the water.

Once they had worked out the mechanics of extracting the moisture from the air, “the university asked us to think up this panel,” said Aponte, who is creative director of the Mayo Draft ad agency.

He said the project — part water generator, part advertising billboard — has filled a real need here, as “there are many people who have no access to clean water,” he told AFP.

“We have seen that this has a huge potential if you get to use it in other areas of Lima, or even other countries that have many water problems,” said Aponte, who said he has received overseas queries about the project.

Carlos Cardenas, who works as a driver and travels regularly by the Pan-American Highway that runs along Peru’s coast, stops alongside the sign, taking several glasses of water before moving on.

“I often stop here to get water because it is quite good, and not nearly as polluted as it seems to be in other places,” he told AFP.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/27/perus-engineers-make-their-own-drinkable-water-in-response-to-shortages-outside-of-lima/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+(The+Raw+Story)

Artists. $20,000 stipend and work in fellowship. EYEBEAM FELLOWSHIP OPEN CALL THEME: WHAT IS HUMAN ABOUT TECHNOLOGY? September 1, 2023

 One of the first organizations dedicated to supporting artists who create with technology, Eyebeam aims to support artists who make radical, independent work about how we live. 

Since its founding more than 20 years ago, over 500 artists have received support through its flagship fellowship, with hundreds more participating in exhibitions and gatherings. Eyebeam has released a 2024 fellowship open call with the theme: What is human about technology? Through the fellowship, Eyebeam calls on artists to bring their innate mental, spiritual, and physical aspects of what it means to be human into play with technology to affirm humanity’s role as creators—not spectators—of our collective techno-future. Eyebeam seeks artists to explore the creative potentials of technologies that support and enhance the best of human intelligence and imagination. In particular, Eyebeam is interested in supporting those artists whose efforts consider the impact of technology on individuals and communities who face additional barriers to access and inclusion. Adopting a human-centric approach to technology, led by artists, can ensure that future technology is developed and used to promote human well-being and agency rather than corporate consumption.

Selected artists participating in this six-month program will receive a $20,000 stipend and access to a network of peers, mentors, and experts in the field and to partnered state-of-the-art facilities and resources. Eyebeam will select five non-New York-based artists from anywhere in the world and five NYC-based artists for this fellowship. The fellowship will hybridize online and in-person components, including workshops, mentorship sessions, and networking opportunities. Additionally, Eyebeam aims to make available robust opportunities for exhibition, presentation, and public engagement at the close of the fellowship.

The fellowship cycle will run from February 15, 2024, through August 15, 2024. 

For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the Eyebeam website.

Link to complete RFP

U.S. Department of State Reaffirms Commitment to the UN International Day for People of African Descent

 I don't not say this lightly.

Thank you honorable Andrews Williams (HH Andrew Williams, Jr. , www.AndrewNetworks.com, Andrew Williams Jr Brand Ambassador,  HH Andrew Williams Jr LinkedIn, about.me/hhprinceandrewwilliamsjr) for your continued and unwavering commitment to the:

  1. United Nations International Day\Decade for People of African Descent

  2. Promotion and advocacy for increasing membership throughout the world in the

           United Nations Global Compact  (UNGC).

Charles D. Sharp.  Chair\CEO BEMA International.  Washington, D.C.

International Day for People of African Descent 08/31/2023 12:13 PM EDT Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State Every August 31st, the world comes together through the UN International Day for People of African Descent to honor the shared heritage, diverse culture, and profound influence of Africans and the global African diaspora. This day also serves as an opportunity to raise global awareness about the challenges of systemic racism, discrimination, and exclusion faced by individuals of African descent worldwide. In December 2022, President Biden issued an executive order to create the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States. In June 2022, I appointed Desirée Cormier Smith as the inaugural Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice at the State Department. Since then, she has diligently coordinated the Department’s efforts to combat global anti-Black racism and advance the human rights of individuals from marginalized racial, ethnic, and Indigenous communities worldwide through our foreign policy. On this day, we reaffirm our commitment to the theme of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent: recognition, justice, and development.

bEMA International Washington, D.C.  20020
Cooperation, Collaboration, Communication, Coordination, Community engagement, and  Partnering (C5&P)
A 501 (c) 3 organization