Newark, New Jersey, November 5, 2020 – SeaFreight Labs today announced that it will be serving as Project Advisor for a new global challenge published by World Vision (www.worldvision.org), a Christian humanitarian organization.  In this role, SeaFreight Labs will provide coordination, facilitation, promotion and support services to World Vision to help drive the project to one or more impactful innovations.  The challenge will be designed and judged by staff associated with the WASH (WAter, Sanitation and Health) group at World Vision.  It will be executed on the platform of our strategic partner, InnoCentive (www.innocentive.com).  The prize is US$20,000. 

 

The introduction of chlorination as a means to disinfect and safeguard the public drinking water supply represents one of the most valuable public health advances in recorded history. Despite the well documented public health benefits, however, the use of chlorination in rural water supply systems in Sub-Saharan Africa remains low. One factor limiting its use is the ability to easily monitor free chlorine levels at multiple points within the water distribution system. While proprietary technologies have been developed to automate the measurement process, they remain expensive and therefore impractical for smaller scale, rural systems.  This challenge is seeking new solutions that can be deployed for under US$500.

 

“World Vision has worked to deliver clean water to children and their families for over forty years.” said Jordan Smoke, Director - Water at World Vision.  “As we move from a simple well with handpump to piped water systems, the complexity of technology required expands.  A solution to this challenge will remove one of the biggest cost barriers to monitoring water quality of piped water in rural villages.” 

 

“Dramatic reductions in cost are difficult to achieve with in-house or consulting resources”, said Harry Sangree, President and Founder of SeaFreight Labs.  “The use of open innovation and crowd-solving allows World Vision to tap into new expertise from around the world to quickly solicit creative ideas that we hope will allow a giant leap forward for World Vision in their work.”   

 

This project will be executed as an ‘reduce-to-practice’ challenge.  A winning Solver is expected to provide a working solution that can be tested by World Vision.  The Solver does not transfer their intellectual property rights to World Vision.  Instead, they grant a non-exclusive license to World Vision to practice the solution.     

 

Read the details of this challenge HERE.  Visit the World Vision Pavilion to see other WASH-related challenges HERE.  Check out Harry’s blog on the project at www.seafreightlabs.com/blog.

 

About SeaFreight Labs

SeaFreight Labs is an open-innovation consultancy offering turn-key crowd-solving services to the seafreight, maritime and logistics industries.  We design and execute global challenges to cost-effectively deliver breakthrough innovation for intractable problems.  Visit www.seafreightlabs.com. 

 

SeaFreight Labs is a member of the Pledge-1% movement.  Participation in this project honors the company's commitment to donate at least 1% of company product to selected non-profit organizations. 

 

About World Vision

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. For more information, please visit www.worldvision.org or follow on Twitter @WorldVisionUSA.

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Download a PDF of the release HERE.