Dean Kamen, the engineer of the Segway, has invented a water-cleaning machine which he calls the Slingshot.
"Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water," says Kamen. His water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day.
The Slingshot works by taking in contaminated water – even raw sewage -- and separating out the clean water by vaporizing it. It then shoots the remaining sludge back out a plastic tube.
"Not required are engineers, pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists," says Kamen. "You don't need any -ologists. You don't need any building permits, bribery, or bureaucracies." He predicts, "In the 21st century, water will be delivered by an entrepreneur."
Kamen's goal is to produce machines that cost $1,000 to $2,000 each. Iqbal Quadir is going to try and see if the machines can be produced economically by a factory in Bangladesh. If the numbers work out, not only does he think that distributing them in a decentralized fashion will be good business -- he also thinks it will be good public policy.
[From CNNmoney.com article]
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