proposal


 * a) Proposal and Ideation (March 8 – 10%)**

//Break down your intended project, summarizing what you're intending to investigate and providing some background research and inspiration to your design concept.//


 * 1) //In the case of sustainability, how is your project aiming to improve sustainable design and development?//
 * 2) //In the case of targeting underserved communities, who are they?//
 * 3) //How will your project address their concerns?//

//An executive summary of your intent and focus - approximately 500-750 words - will be fine at this stage. Design inspirations can be included at the end as an appendix.//

**Background Research and Information** Water is essential and the basis for all life on this planets. People in the Western and developed countries take for granted the clean and drinkable water available to them without thinking of the processes it goes through. Unfortunately, about a billion people in the developing nations don't have safe water to drink. Almost 1 in 4 children die before the age of 5 worldwide because of water related diseases that can be prevented with purified water (The Water Project  , 2010). By integrating modern technologies into the water systems in the developing countries, it provides them with a better means to clean water before consuming it.

**Sustainable Design** The proposed idea must work under sustainable design, where the design is economically, socially and ecologically efficient. Since this is a design directed towards being used in developing countries, it has to be cost efficient yet long-lasting. By proposing a filter system that cleans the water in the well, it supports not only a single family, but a larger community. Wells are one of the main sources of water to the people but the water isn't necessarily safe to drink. By installing only one filter system attached to the well, people don't have to worry about it being clean or not. The filter is environmentally friendly and emits no toxins or chemicals back into the water. Since many filters need electricity to power the system, the redesign has opted for a sustainable solution that wouldn't rely on electrical systems in the village. A device as small as this wouldn't need much power, so a long-lasting battery should provide the filter with enough power to do the job for a long period of time. Instead of filtering the water before each use, this provides the people with clean water at every point and every use, reducing the chances of water related diseases.

Millions of people are amongst the underserved population, living in rural areas. These rural areas are found worldwide across all continents. Out of the millions, the majority that are effected by poor living standards and contamination of water sources are the children within these areas. We plan to help these underserved communities by coming to the aid by providing proper water filtering treatments to help purify the water for both health and safety reasons. The area we feel that would be most beneficial to serve would be the developing countries within Africa. This is because the developing countries such as Africa lag well behind the industrial world in water and sanitation. Over 1.1 billion people live without access to safe drinking water. In the 1990's there was actually a decline in the safety of water sanitization within Africa, stimulating the need from outside sources to come to their aid. Africa also has the largest number of people who lack access to clean water, making this country the primary beneficiary for our water filtering techniques.
 * Targeted Communities**

The importance of clean water is nothing new to the world. We need it for just about anything, our biggest and most important need for it is our survival. Since the discovery of the knowledge that the distribution of potable water was limited, people have been trying to clean and sanitize it. Instead of importing clean water, which highly expensive and highly difficult for countries in the third world, people have tried to clean water in various ways. The most common and the first type of water purification started when people began boiling it. Then to distribute it on a larger scale people started adding chemicals like chlorine. The whole process of moving clean water is still one of the biggest concerns in our world today.
 * Ideas and Application **

Due to the poverty of most third world countries clean water reaching those areas is very difficult. Many of these countries use a well system where water is extracted from the grounds water table and brought up a pulley type system where the end of the rope is attached to a bucket. Granted that this does bring water to the people but it does not clean it.

Our main goal in this project is to research companies and technologies that dedicate their time and knowledge in the purification and distribution of clean water. One of the companies that have done this is Genieye which has taken the power of electricity and natural materials to clean water safely and environmentally. The company continues to find different ways to apply there ever improving technology and research to clean water in third world country. One of their first ideas used small motor jets with natural material silver to clean water naturally and safely. They have applied this technology to the water sources in places like Africa. Our idea is for people or organizations to use this technology in the wells of small towns so that people have more accessibility to clean water without having to travel great distances or pay too much money.

Most third world countries extract their water from wells, some get their water from rivers or naturally formed ponds, and others don’t have water to access at all let alone it being clean. Our goal as the filterers is to go where there actually is accessible water and run it through a filtration system that would make it clean enough to drink. Understandably this would not be a magical system where the source of water would become clean and problem solved. Different areas have different problems with the water and need to be purified accordingly. Our goal is apply our technology to the areas where we can clean water and store that water for distribution of different areas. Our design is a simple one but needs to be clarified. If the source of water for a village is a “Well” for instance, we would first service the water to find out whether or not the technology we are using is viable or useful. If it is, we would introduce our technology, a small ionizing motor with a silver component that through its process kills bacteria and makes water drinkable. Granted these motors can’t clean such a large amount of water. Therefore extracting water to purify and store would also serve a great result.  Essentially our goal is purify water in Wells because the water is already concentrated in one area and can be cleaned for extraction. Realistically we figure that extracting water, analysing and then having it run through a process would be more practical.

//Bring Clean Water to Africa & India//. Web. 07 Mar. 2010. <@http://thewaterproject.org/>.
 * Bibliography**

@http://www.genieye.com/ Filter system that uses Copper Ions to clean and purify water.
 * APPENDIX**