Shelf Life: Water for Africa with new Chivas venture

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Social entrepreneur, James Steere, has created I-Drop Water, a for-profit social enterprise that designs, builds and installs drinking-water purification and dispensing machines in grocery stores at no cost, sharing income generated from water sales with store owners. i-Drop Water has installed purification and dispensing units in over 55 locations in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, helping shop owners save almost 995 000l of water and over 1 300kg of plastic waste — an achievement that saw the company announced as the winner of the South African version of Chivas Regal’s The Venture III.

The Venture III is Chivas Regal’s global search to find, mentor and support burgeoning startups that are dedicated to making a difference in their communities. Steere was recently announced as the SA winner of the social entrepreneurship initiative and will travel to Los Angeles later in the year to compete for the global prize.

Says Steere: “Everywhere I have travelled in Africa, there is bottled water for sale in grocery stores at an exorbitant price. And yet, in many of these grocery stores, there is a water supply; what is missing is a way of purifying water on site. This is a widespread issue and 750m people across the globe still do not have access to safe, clean drinking water.”

Source: MarkLives.com (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Health Care
Tags
business development, poverty alleviation, public health