Enter: The StackJack Water Filter

The last time I wrote was shortly after returning from Cambodia to do some needfinding with two of the other three members of my team, Albert and Danielle. The project we worked on as members of the Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability class was to design a water filter for rural schoolchildren in Cambodia. On our trip we met Sukha and his classmates, as well as other members of their families. They live in a village in rural Cambodia and have no running water.

Sukha and his classmates led us to our Point of View:

Carefree curious children at rural Cambodian schools need an educational and engaging way to provide themselves with clean drinking water so they can thrive and be examples of healthy behavior in their communities.

In Cambodia, untreated water and poor sanitation are the leading causes of 9.4 million cases of diarrhea per year, which leads to 10,000 deaths. Children are especially vulnerable: diarrheal disease kills 14 out of every 1000 children. Furthermore, 1.8 million Cambodian households lack access to clean water and sickness resulting from unclean water and poor sanitation costs Cambodian households 80 M in lost productivity and medical expenses each year. Our partner Hydrologic, a subsidiary of International Development Enterprises (IDE) Cambodia, aspires to become the leading distributor of effective and affordable hygiene and sanitation products in Cambodia.

My Extreme Team partnered with Hydrologic to develop a water purification system suitable for school use to complement Hydrologic’s Rabbit Water Filter Home line (so named because rabbits are seen as wise in Cambodia, despite their non-existence there!). It meets the need of providing an affordable and robust larger scale water filter for this particularly vulnerable and influential population.

Enter: The StackJack Rabbit Water Filter.

Our Functional Prototype, successfully tested with 2nd graders!

The StackJack filter has an innovative, low cost design featuring ceramic filtration technology -- the most effective water filtration technology widely available and locally producible in the Cambodian market. StackJack empowers children to provide themselves with clean water by lowering the access height for filter loading (with actual dimensions, not prototype dimensions) and increasing the ease of water transport. Its modular design also helps lifting because it decreases the volume of water carried per load and elicits the participation of multiple children loading together. The unique continuous flow element allows the holding volume of the filter to be scaled up or down for use in versatile settings, engages the senses when it is secured into place and the water starts to flow into the next module, and provides immediate feedback to the user. The StackJack water filter should be filled twice a day during the school’s morning and afternoon cleaning routines to provide 40L of filtered water per day. The attractive, modern design coupled with a reasonable price point make StackJack an ideal companion product for the Rabbit home filter.

Actual Piece Details:

Continuous Flow Mechanism Details:

Our Theory of Change (the big picture):

If rural schools have access to a community water filter, it will save families in the community money spent purifying water and treating the diseases that result from unpurified water, as well as improve children’s ability to study, socialize, and reach their education goals.

Additionally, we believe that children are agents of change in their communities and that they have the power and ability to change habits, creating a lasting behavior change and impact.

The presentation went wonderfully – it was really satisfying to see that the questions people asked us were about details of the filter, details that implied that they bought into the concept and were excited and thinking about the logistics of the installation and long-term maintenance of the StackJack filter.

Exit: Year 1 of Grad School.

A HUGE shout-out to the other members of my Extreme Team: Alexa Bisinger (MD/MBA 1), Danielle Garcia (GSB 1), and Albert Lai (MS, CS)!!

I arrived in Boston today to intern at IDEO this summer. Will do my best to update more often with summertime adventures!