Who we are
Flow Solutions is a for-profit alternative running water company founded by four students at Brown University. We are a team of listeners, designers, and engineers that creates simple, low-cost innovations that bring running water to those who lack access to it.
Billions of people have to get their water from an off-premise source, such as a well or a delivery truck. They then bring this water home, where it sits in buckets and containers. While water is available, there is no means for pressurizing it, meaning that people have trouble washing hands, dishes, and maintaining personal hygiene. It also means that use of water is inefficient.
As it stands, running water is viewed as a complex, expensive infrastructure problem and we want to change that. Running water is a human right, and we believe that our products will bring it to people anywhere in the world at a price they can afford. In our eyes, micro-running water systems are the perfect solution to this worldwide problem.
We’ve defined what we call “the safe water ecosystem”. This ecosystem includes Availability, Filtration, Delivery, Storage, Consumption, and Waste. Our solution specifically targets Storage and Consumption.
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We want to help mend the broken safe water ecosystem.
Many help to bring water to those who don’t have access (Availability/Delivery) or clean water (Filtration), but forget about the later stages. The water may be available, but it’s stagnant and hard to use. Water is wasted when families perform simple tasks such as washing hands or cleaning dishes.
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We have brought the design of our our first prototype to India and have partnered with FORCE, a New Delhi-based non-profit that provides clean water to communities across the country.
When we gave the prototype to families in New Delhi, they made fully functioning showers and sinks from them. In general, they loved the product!
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What we need
To produce our solution at scale, we need to buy a custom dye for a plastic mold. This costs about $10,000 and the software we need to design our final product, and any future products costs an additional $5,000. With this funding, our team can further improve the prototype design and sell the tank at a lower price through scaled production.
The road ahead
We know this is not the solution, rather this is a solution. We also know that some solutions are scalable and some are not. We can foster local feedback loops that help us support alternative running water solutions to match user specific needs. These solutions can provide families with the necessary water resources to improve hand washing and other forms of disease preventing sanitary practices. Further, we can allow users to more efficiently control the amount of water they use, ensuring they get the most out of every drop.
How you can help
If you can donate, we really appreciate it! However, we also understand that not everyone can. There are tons of other ways you can help us bring running water to communities around the world. We are just a few of many seeking to bring innovation to the global water crisis. Spread the word to friends and share this campaign so we can bring water solutions to communities that need them. Also check out our website at www.flowsolutions.co and like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/flowsolutionsinc to stay updated on everything that we're doing at Flow.
