Local Non-Profit, Caminos de Agua, Wins Prestigious Engineering Competition
Recently, Caminos de Agua (Caminos) was named as one of three winners of the Innovation Showcase Award, hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) in Washington D.C. Caminos was recognized for its new modular water filter – Aguadapt.
Caminos de Agua has already developed a certified ceramic filter that removes 99.9999% of pathogens and bacteria from contaminated water. However, low-income people worldwide are disproportionately affected by rising levels of chemical contamination, something most low-cost filters simply do not address. Additionally, shipping expensive bottled water is common in emergency disaster relief, which is costly and very inefficient.
Aguadapt is a flexible filter platform which seeks to solve both of these issues. The family-sized system is robust, deploys rapidly, and can be quickly installed in nearly any commonly available containers – ideal for emergency response. Aguadapt is not only adaptable to containers but also to regionally-relevant contaminants like arsenic, lead, fluoride, or pesticides. So, it can easily transition from emergency relief to a permanent water solution for families. Aguadapt takes a proven technology – the certified ceramic water filter – and makes it easy to ship worldwide; simple to install in nearly any container, adaptable to treat dangerous chemical contaminants like arsenic, fluoride, agrochemicals, and antibiotics; and ideal for both disaster response and long-term use.
The ASME award was presented to the Caminos Team by Jean-Louis Racine, the head of the Climate Technology Program at the World Bank and is accompanied by a USD $10,000 cash prize. In addition, Caminos de Agua will have access to free consulting services with Catapult Design – a design firm that works with socially-driven organizations to build accessible, market-based products and services that give low income and underserved people reliable tools to improve their quality of life. The ASME award also comes with an invitation to additional events to be held in New York City in October. There, Caminos will have a chance to compete for more funding and the opportunity to present Aguadapt to industry water experts who can help take production to scale. The goal is to make Aguadapt accessible to the people who need it most. In the coming months, Caminos will pilot Aguadapt with nearly 700 families in southern Mexico in partnership with Concern America – a US non-profit working with at risk communities in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia.
Caminos de Agua has been hard at work to make Aguadapt an accessible water filter that is flexible enough to address the world’s most pressing emerging contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride, which are present in the water extracted from many wells in our region. “Aguadapt. All waters. All people.”
Article by Paco Guajardo
