The World Vision, supported by SeaFreight Labs, is seeking novel new ideas, concepts, and approaches to attack the lack of adequate toilets and latrines in some of the poorest areas of the world. Solutions to this Challenge will have a major positive impact on the lives of countless children and adults worldwide and potentially reduce significantly the number of deaths due to poor sanitation conditions around the globe.

The lack of adequate sanitation facilities is a global problem with an estimated 2.3 billion people using unimproved toilets or no toilets at all when eliminating waste. This problem leads to significant public health issues with an estimated 280,000 diarrheal deaths per year attributable to inadequate sanitation. Poor sanitation is also a major factor in several neglected tropical diseases, including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis, and trachoma as well as contributing to malnutrition.

Components

Properly designed and constructed toilets are a key feature of adequate sanitation facilities. Toilets consist of three primary components:

• containment – the mechanism by which waste is stored for treatment or removal,
• interface – the point of contact between the user and containment, and
• superstructure – the structure above the ground that serves to separate the user from the environment and provide privacy and safety.

Award Information

This is an Ideation Challenge, which has the following unique features:

• There is a guaranteed award. The award(s) will be paid to the best submission(s) as solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout will be $15,000, with at least one award being no smaller than $5,000 and no award being smaller than $1,000.
• The Solvers are not required to transfer exclusive intellectual property rights to the Seeker.  Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solver grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information included in this proposal, including for promotional purposes.

Eligibility Criteria

• Employees of World Vision and their immediate families, as well as any individuals involved in the judging of this Challenge and their immediate families, are ineligible to receive an award for this Challenge.

For more information, visit World Vision Challenge.