and International Space Station’s that
663 million people don’t have safe water
this is a huge number and it’s very hard
to wrap our minds around big numbers
2,300 this represents a number of people
that die every day due to waterborne
disease still a big number still hard to
wrap our minds around that concept 16
this represents the number of people
they’re going to die by the end of my
talk this is astounding this is terrible
and so I was motivated by my faith to
help alleviate this terrible suffering
that’s occurring around the world today
and one of the most common ways of
solving this problem is through putting
in hand pumps so in developing countries
there’s lots of hand pumps getting the
water out of the ground and so you see
these pictures with people and kids
smiling happy getting water for the
first time but I asked myself if this is
really working why are there still 663
million people without safe water and
furthermore this looks a lot different
than the way I get water I go to a
spigot and I turn on the faucet and I
get clean water as much as I want
is this working so this really led me
down this journey of discovery to try to
understand better the problems with
water and I quickly teamed up with some
volunteers who were like-minded who
wanted to do so and in looking at the
research and talking to missionaries and
and interviewing NGOs about what they
were doing and then I had the chance to
go to Africa myself and see the problems
firsthand here we are northern Malawi
and we’re talking to village leaders and
we’re talking to World Vision officials
learning about all the complexities of
the water crisis one of the big issues
is there’s just not a lot of water out
there at least on the surface so boiling
and filtering and chlorinating water
just doesn’t work if you don’t have
enough to work with so we went to a
village to see this a village where we
asked them take us back to where you’re
getting water so we walk down this long
narrow path this dirt path and we get to
this place right here
this big hole in the ground and in the
bottom is a natural
rame it’s only about three feet in
diameter maybe six inches deep and this
is where a village of 300 people were
getting water this is barely enough
water to drink let alone to wash or to
water a garden so this is a big problem
and then there’s a contamination issue
we met this girl in northern Ethiopia
and we gave her a clear cup and we asked
will you hold this up and show us the
water that you’re using and this is a
community where there’s lots of water
there’s actually a river and there’s a
dam in a pond but you can see how dirty
that water is because there’s cattle
walking through the water doing what
cows do best and this is what they’re
using and to make matters worse it’s the
time and energy taken to get that bad
water this little girl we met in Malawi
she’s wearing her school uniform but
instead of learning reading riting and
rithmetic she’s learning how to carry
water because that’s what she’s going to
do for most of her life in her community
we’re told that that the ladies who are
always responsible for getting water
they’re spending 12 hours a day getting
water and they’re getting this bad water
that’s no hope and no future and then
there’s the pump issue so as a
mechanical engineer I wanted to research
the technology the hardware and see you
know what can be done with that and as
we’re driving through you see lots of
broken pumps all over the place and we
learned that just in sub-saharan Africa
there’s about 300 45,000 hand pumps
installed but about a third of those are
no longer functioning and we asked why
why is that and one of the primary
reasons is these pumps were not designed
to be very long-lasting or durable
they’re made to be inexpensive so what
happens is these pumps they last on
average maybe six months in some places
only a few weeks and then when they
break it takes an average of like 30
days to get them fixed if they ever do
get fixed so what would you do for a day
without water you go back to the same
place you’re getting water before
getting reinfected your garden your
plants die and these pumps are based on
a piston style technology so they’re
dependent on these o-rings and valves
that are fairly inexpensive themselves
because there’s not a supply chain and
most of the developing world these are
very expensive to get ahold of so it
cost hundreds of dollars to get these
pumps repaired every time and it’s
something that surprised us a little bit
was the drilling and the depth issues so
there’s a lot of communities that are
told over time sorry there’s no water
here and the reason is is because the
standard hand pumps the indian mark ii
and Afra dev around the world they only
go down to about 45 or 50 meters and
just physically quit working to make
matters worse when they’re installed
that deep they even break down quicker
and we learned that many places if they
just drilled a little bit deeper maybe
sixty or seventy meters they actually
would get into good water but because
they don’t have a technology to get that
water out they’re told sorry we can’t
help you and that community is
tremendously disappointed and to make
matters even worse that drilling
operation cost thousands of dollars this
happens a lot so it really begs the
question is something better than
nothing is this the best we can do are
we doing the best we can our team of
engineering volunteers we said no we can
do better we can create a much better
option so we decided to build a better
hand pump a pump that would last years
instead of months and a pump that would
go much deeper into the ground
don’t down to 100 meters and this is
based on a progressive cavity pumping
technology which means you don’t have
these o-rings and valves that can break
and it’s a very durable pump type and so
we took our first prototype here to the
Central African Republic in 2011 and
this was a great learning experience
which in engineering is code for it
didn’t work but we learn from our
mistakes what happened was the pipes
that we assumed they were using or a
different type of thread than what we
use in the United States when we tested
and we go all the way to Africa and
discover this but we were determined
mount no more than ever to fix the
problem so we retooled create a new
solution and we called it the life pump
in 2013 we installed our first permanent
installations in Malawi with World
Vision these are in communities that the
drill trucks went out the why
was deeper than 45 or 50 meters and they
said hey we have a couple of these life
pumps they go to 100 meters let’s try
them out they put him in they got water
community was a static we were invited
to a large-scale pilot to test this in
different geographies different
geologies different cultures and
government systems we called this 100
pump project and we quickly form the
organization the nonprofit design
outreach to support this to scale this
we started in Malawi then we went to
Zambia and Kenya and Ethiopia then last
in Mali and it’s been a huge success
many lives permanently affected now
we’ve reported on this we had an
independent evaluation done on this
pilot it’s gotten a lot of good
attention but some of the coolest
stories are people like thickness
thickness is an amazing woman she’s a
grandmother she lives in one of those
first communities that got a pump in
Malawi the village of zalem mondo and
victus was on the water committee and
when we had her pump installation
training team go to zalem ando in 2013
they met her and she had amazing
aspiration she said I want to build a
house I want to start a garden I want to
build a school all these wonderful
things and and the team was like this is
awesome so about six months later I got
to go back to her village and and I knew
what she looked like she had no idea who
I was and I ran up to her and I said hi
Vick miss I’m Greg and she looks at me
like huh I heard about you like I heard
all the things are gonna do and she’s
like yeah yeah and I’m like can you show
me like the house in the garden and all
these things I was so excited to see
this development happen and she’s like
sure so we walked through this village
and there’s all these brick homes all
over the place and what I didn’t realize
at the time where those homes were knew
and we got back to this house that she’s
leaning against this is her home it’s a
four-room house that she built with her
own two hands
before that she was living in a
single-room Shack and the reason she
could do this is because she had water
in the village to make these homemade
bricks extremely hard worker and on top
of that she had 12 hours a day now to do
that before she was literally spending
12 hours a day going back and forth to
get water this amazing development
didn’t stop there I went back six months
to that she had started this beautiful
garden vegetables we went back after
that she started building a second home
and she rented the first home to her
sister and there were other businesses
popping up brick building businesses
other gardens in the community this
development is just amazing to see and
then there’s coffee combo Community
School in Zambia this is an example
where we got to replace a pump that kept
breaking down very frequently every few
months at this school this pump would
break down and we learned about this and
said this would be a great spot to put
in a durable pump a pump that lasts for
five years between maintenance a pump
that goes to 100 meters and I was
talking to the headmaster here and he
said I’m so thankful to have this pump I
said tell me more he’s like before this
pump it was costing us so much money
fixing the old standard pump we had that
it was cutting into my school budget
this is a very very poor school a very
poor area and he told us that the reason
why most kids come to this school is
because their parents know they’ll get
at least one meal that day and he said
because I keep fixing the pump because
the pump keeps breaking down he had to
cut back the amount of food that they
could buy some of the kids quit coming
to school because of that he said
because the life pump here I can rely on
this thing I know it’s going to work
it’s going to function it’s not going to
cost me all this money it’s saving him
literally hundreds of dollars a year now
that goes to very necessary things like
food school supplies and behind the
building was one of the coolest things
we walk around behind this building and
because of the life bump he put in this
huge garden the school is now having all
these vegetables nutritious vegetables
coming to them and the reason they
wouldn’t plant a garden before is
because with the previous pump when it
break down it would be catastrophic and
sudden ever it takes like 30 days to get
a pump fixed on average and all their
plants would die so they don’t even
invest in the seeds to build the garden
because they’re afraid their plants will
die the celebrations of communities
getting water for the first time or some
of the best moments of my life so
getting married having kids graduating
from college and seeing a village
get water for the first time the
celebrations are just out of this world
they’re so genuine knowing that this
community is getting real hope and a
real future so today we have these pumps
in six countries in Africa and Haiti
we’re affecting 24,000 lives now because
of this we have a goal of reaching two
and a half million people by 2030 so
this really begs the question is
something better than nothing and I look
at pictures like this before and after
and I ask myself these are my kids which
glass of water would I want them to
drink and ask you the same question if
these were your kids which glass of
water would you want them to drink I
think the answer is obvious and so is
something better than nothing well it
depends is that something creating real
impact is it creating a permanent
solution or is it a band-aid is it a
temporary fix and if it is I encourage I
urge us to never stop working until we
solve the problems once and for all thank you very much