Business 2.0 looks at Segway inventor Dean Kamen’s new effort to bring electricity and clean water to rural villages in developing nations. The technology includes shit-fueled Stirling engines and a new water-purifying machine called the Slingshot. His business model is based on the “Grameen phone ladies” who receive microloans to buy cell phones and service and charge their neighbors to make calls. Based on the innovative business model, Grameen Phone has become the biggest cell phone company in Bangladesh. Now, the company’s founder, Iqbal Quadir, is teaming up with Kamen. From Business 2.0:
“Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water,” says Kamen. “The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don’t care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns…”
Last year, Quadir took prototypes of Kamen’s power machines to two villages in his home country for a six-month field trial. That trial, which ended last September, sold Quadir on the technology.
So much so in fact that Quadir’s startup, Cambridge, Mass.-based Emergence Energy, is negotiating with Kamen’s Deka Research and Development to license the technology. Quadir then hopes to raise $30 million in venture capital to start producing the power machines.