Spencer Ochieng is in the business of connecting remote villages
in Kenya with water. But to do so he relies on an unusual tool.
When most people dig down to check the water table below,
Ochieng digs into his right pocket. “The first thing we check
for is availability of a strong mobile phone signal,” says
Ochieng, general manager of Grundfos Lifelink, an organization
that uses technology to provide safe drinking water to
communities throughout the developing world. Currently, there
are nearly 1 billion people around the world with no access to
clean water, and 13 million in Kenya alone with no access to a
so-called “improved water system” – NGO-speak for anything that
improves on collecting dirty water from rivers, lakes or ponds.
The Lifelink project was set up to tackle this problem using a
solar-powered pump and a pay-per-use water tap, designed
specifically for Kenya’s mobile-centered society. The setup is
relatively simple. Protected water is drawn from sources up to
250m underground by solar powered pu