Ripple Effect. This project is a collaboration between Acumen Fund and IDEO and many other partners, to address the challenges of water transport and storage in the developing world. From retrieval to consumption, the journey of water is complex and offers many opportunities for improvement. Even when water is collected from a high quality source, it requires significant time and effort to bring the water home and often becomes contaminated during the trip.
Project goal
The goal of Ripple Effect is to ensure that the world’s poorest and most underserved people will have improved options for accessing safe water, by applying a human-centered approach to innovation and design to catalyze safe water service expansion. Our work is focused in India and East Africa.
Our approach
Ripple Effect is about collaboration. We aim to bring together experts and practitioners in the water sector, design thinkers, and investors to share approaches, build knowledge, and work together to create new business solutions. We are interested both in common approaches to the world’s water problems, and specific solutions appropriate to the customers, business models, and water contexts of each organization.
The Ripple Effect project is built on a previous phase of work to understand the needs and desires around water transport and storage in India. In the current phase, IDEO and Acumen Fund will collaborate with partners in India to understand customer needs and develop solutions such as delivery services and large-scale water storage systems. In March 2009, we’ll host a workshop in Hyderabad in which IDEO will share field insights from the Ripple Effect project and preliminary business ideas around water storage and transportation. The workshop will allow practitioners to build on these ideas and create targeted solutions, connect with experts and potential investors, and lay the groundwork to bring new business ideas to market. Starting in July 2009, we’ll bring our focus to East Africa.
Who are we?
Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that invests in entrepreneurs to solve the problems of global poverty. Acumen’s water portfolio aims to spur innovation in water access and water quality by improving drinking water, irrigation and sanitation.
IDEO is a global design consultancy that creates impact through design of products, services, experiences, and interactions. Named one of the world’s most innovative companies, our clients include multinational corporations such as Nokia and Microsoft and social sector organizations such as Rockefeller Foundation, VisionSpring, and KickStart. Our approach focuses on empathy, prototyping and storytelling.
Our work is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community.