Grand Challenges, Team 8: Graydon Cortez, Alex Garcia-Mora, Aidan Coleman, and Lucas Luwa
Wicked Problem: Lack of access to water after Natural Disasters.
Our problem revolves around Haiti and Puerto Rico and how the people have suffered through and recovered from natural disasters like hurricanes. More specifically, we decided to look at water and the issues before and after a natural disaster. Before a disaster strikes in either country, we found that they generally lack sustainable infrastructure and stock of clean water. The problems are definitely much more evident after a natural disaster strikes, when water supplies are drained fast and there generally isn’t the necessary infrastructure in place in order to redistribute water supplies. We chose to zero in on water because of its necessity and importance, and because solving its shortage and contamination will revitalize a critical resource where it’s badly needed. From here, we’re going to look at the crucial points in the system map and select an intervention point that will maximize the most impact.
Our Systems Map:
Kumu Link: https://embed.kumu.io/9c194caa15646b51f068e6105f074339
Why?: Our main goal was to focus on clean water, or the lack thereof, during a natural disaster. We then narrowed down our problem statement to focus on the Caribbean and, eventually, narrowed it down to two specific countries: Haiti and Puerto Rico. We chose these two nations mainly because of the heavy impact natural disasters have had on their water sources. In addition, being relatively isolated often bars aid from reaching in a timely manner. Because of this, we wanted to dedicate our project to finding solutions to help obtain clean water for individuals in these countries after a disaster. Overall, our selection of countries reflects our goal of improving access to clean water after a disaster.
Intervention points: We selected our points of intervention to maximize our impact on the community and the problem as a whole. The intervention points included lack of tax revenue to fund projects, government preparedness in the wake of disasters and dehydration. In terms of a lack of tax revenue to fund projects, we are searching for alternative ways of funding projects through either fundraisers or charities. These have the potential to be more reliable than the government and can help resolve the lack of funding for projects. We are also aware of the lack of government preparedness and believe that this is a clear intervention point through the use of nonprofits and other charitable organizations. Nonprofit organizations can be far faster than the government and can make a tremendous impact in the face of a disaster. Lastly, we believe that dehydration is a point of intervention. Creating desalination plants, portable water filters, water.
Our Stakeholders:
Puerto Rico → Water Mission (Fill out form on webpage), Oxfam America (info@oxfamAmerica.org), and IsraAID (info@israaid.org).
Haiti → Poured Out (info@poured-out.org), International Action (haitiwater.org, 2024880735), and Haiti Outreach (info@Haitioutreach.org, 6129291122
All Interim Work Products:
We believe that increasing access to clean water by working with various charitable organizations after a disaster will dramatically improve the lives of those directly affected by the crisis. As a team, we would like to make an impact on the lives of others by directly improving their livelihood and health after a disaster, which can be measured in a reduction of water borne illnesses after a disaster. By combining our unique filtration system with current distribution methods, we can offer the community an even stronger disaster relief system and support their needs in dire times. One of the biggest assumptions made with this particular solution is that rapid distribution will be available during a disaster. In addition, we assume that sufficient funds will be available as well as the fact that there won’t be any significant physical barriers that would halt the distribution of the filters. As a team, we will focus on mitigating our assumptions with quick and easy distribution of our product and formulate methods that can be used to improve delivery times. We will prioritize rapid distribution over issues stemming from random physical barriers to create a more general solution. If we were to distribute the filtration devices directly after a storm or other natural disaster, we can improve the daily lives of thousands of individuals, which can be measured by the number of kits distributed to those in need. This solution would likely need to be conducted shortly after a disaster to have the greatest impact and will require both proper funding and planning to maximize its efficiency.
We believe that water is such an important resource and that access to clean water sources especially after a natural disaster is so crucial and important to people in the aftermath of natural disasters especially in more poor countries like Haiti. As a team we would like to make an impact in the area of water contamination which is largely a result of the natural disasters like hurricanes in order to move to more accessible clean water. By combining our water treatment tablets with basic filtration methods, we can provide people in more poor areas like Haiti a simple solution that would bypass any possible lack of electricity, thus fulfilling their need for a sustainable solution for accessing clean water. The biggest assumptions being made are that the tablets will be effective and nontoxic when consumed or that there will be a way to leave pure water. Another key assumption is that there will be a sustainable yet small and convenient enough way to provide traditional filtering. As a team we will focus on mitigating our assumptions through looking through the most sustainable model possible for the product and distribution. We will design such a model that can be built from common items thereby possibly eliminating the need for transporting the build product or materials to the affected areas for a more sustainable product and business model that would only ship training and education to the locals on how to build it. If we were able to find such a sustainable product as well as a sustainable to get it to the customers such as possible through education of the assembly of the product, the, we would provide an alternative for large filtration and decontamination facilities that are often out of reach for many of these people in poverty. The solution would need to be as sustainable as possible and minimize materials sent overseas and make it as easy as possible for assembly at the site of impact so that costs are reduced for everyone and the most impact is given.
