US$ 100,000 grants are available for innovative non-networked sanitation technologies for the urban poor. “Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies” is one of topics in Round 7 of Grand Challenges Explorations, a US$ 100 million grant initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Proposals are being accepted through May 19, 2011 at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
The sanitation call focuses on four specific challenges:
- Unhygienic and inadequate pit/tank emptying and extraction;
- Recovery of energy from communities’ fecal sludge;
- Inappropriate sanitation solutions for areas challenged by an abundance of water (e.g. communities that face seasonal flooding, high groundwater tables, riparian or tidal communities, etc.);
- Easy to clean, attractive and affordable latrine pan / squatting platform technologies that enhance latrines
Proposed ideas must ultimately be designed for low income urban settings such as slums, informal and formal peri-urban settings, or dense rural settings in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where demand for fecal sludge emptying and treatment are high.
Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million.
Innovations can be new ideas or important improvements to existing solutions. Proposals must provide an underlying rationale, a testable hypothesis, and an associated plan for how the idea would be tested or validated.
Proposals are being accepted online at www.grandchallenges.org/explorations.
Read the application instructions.
Read full details of the Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies challenge
Source: Gates Foundation press release, 15 Mar 2011
We as a NGO of the Sri Lanka has been working with the most marginalised communities in the Tea estates and war effected ares in the island.We are having morethan 20 years experince implementing of miniar Water Sanitation and Hygine projects.We have been developing WSH project proposals for the highly war affected communities in the eastern province of the Sri Lanka and hope to submite it Bill gates foundation.