AWARD YEAR
2015
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
safe water, water purification
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Dean Kamen, Inventor - Deka Research and Development Corp.
WEBSITE
http://www.slingshotdoc.com
Slingshot Water Purification Project
Portable water purification system provides potable water from virtually any source.
For over 15 years, Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segue) has relentlessly pursued an effective way to clean up the world’s water supply. Fifty percent of all human illness is the result of water borne pathogens.
Kamen has invented a small, energy efficient vapor compression distiller that can turn any unfit source of water (river sludge, seawater, poisoned well water, or even a "50 gallon tank of urine", as Stephen Colbert put it) into potable, safe water without any need for chemical additives or filters. Kamen has nicknamed his device the SlingShot, as in the David and Goliath story – a tiny technological solution that can take down a giant problem. But despite the brilliance of his invention, getting these machines into villages around the world has been a long and frustrating journey.
(Sourced from a documentary film press release about Slingshot.)