Gates Foundation offers grants for innovative sanitation technologies

US$ 100,000 grants are available for innovative non-networked sanitation technologies for the urban poor. “Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies” is one of topics in Round 7 of Grand Challenges Explorations, a US$ 100 million grant initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Proposals are being accepted through May 19, 2011 at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

The sanitation call focuses on four specific challenges:

1. Unhygienic and inadequate pit/tank emptying and extraction;
2. Recovery of energy from communities’ fecal sludge;
3. Inappropriate sanitation solutions for areas challenged by an abundance of water (e.g. communities that face seasonal flooding, high groundwater tables, riparian or tidal communities, etc.);
4. Easy to clean, attractive and affordable latrine pan / squatting platform technologies that enhance latrines

Proposed ideas must ultimately be designed for low income urban settings such as slums, informal and formal peri-urban settings, or dense rural settings in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where demand for fecal sludge emptying and treatment are high.

Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million.

Innovations can be new ideas or important improvements to existing solutions. Proposals must provide an underlying rationale, a testable hypothesis, and an associated plan for how the idea would be tested or validated.

Proposals are being accepted online at www.grandchallenges.org/explorations