Grand Challenge: Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies

Submit an original and innovative idea in 2-page proposal for a decentralised, non-waterborne sanitation technology and get a chance to win US$ 100,000 to develop the idea further.

“Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies” is one of the new topics in Round 6 of the Grand Challenges Explorations grants, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Explorations are part of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of US$ 1 million or more, and could eventually evolve into Grand Challenges project.

Areas for innovation to be considered in the sanitation challenge include:

• Sanitation capture and containment technologies: improvements or alternatives to pit latrines.
• Solutions to menstrual management and safe disposal of child feces.
• Extraction and transportation innovations for hauling fecal sludge to transfer or disposal points.
• Advancements in decentralized treatment technology for use at community, apartment block, town, and/or city scales.
• Innovations in re-use of waste for agricultural, energy or industrial purposes at community and/or city level.

Other sanitation innovations, including but not limited to:

• Improved temporary toilets that do not use chemicals requiring special disposal;
• Low cost composting facilities requiring minimal user interaction with composted material.

Solutions will NOT be considered which rely on centralised sewerage systems or chemicals, or which are incompatible with a developing county context.

Grants will be selected on ability to create impact in the context of the Gates Foundations’s Water, Sanitation & Hygiene priorities.

Read the full challenge description

Application deadline: 02 November 2010 at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

Read the application instructions

Announcement of the grant awards are expected in May 2011.

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