NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, March 11, 2011

Less than a week after winning one international mobile app prize, the NextDrop project was victorious again – this time in the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition at the University of Washington’s business school.

The Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) rewards student projects that target poverty reduction in developing economies, integrating financial and social returns on investment. The competition has previously recognized projects like solar-powered modular power generators in Papua New Guinea, prickless anemia scanners in India, mobile wind turbines in Kazakhstan, and sustainable agriculture in Zimbabwe.

At the awards banquet on February 17, NextDrop was awarded the $10,000 prize for information & communication technology, sponsored by Microsoft; I School master’s student Thejo Kote was in Seattle to accept the award.

NextDrop addresses the challenge of unreliable piped water in developing countries by providing households with reliable, near real-time information about water arrival via the mobile phone infrastructure.