A local company received a $4.2 million grant to create technology to help developing countries.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the money to Crane Engineering in Kimberly.
Program director Mark Hessman says they’ll develop a system to turn human waste into water for agricultural and industrial use. The goal is to kill pathogens that make people sick. The water wouldn’t be drinkable.
He says four workers got to go to Uganda and Ghana in Africa, to see where the tech would be used. He says they don’t have the sanitation or the water that we take for granted. He says the technology can save a lot of lives.
Hessman says they want to develop a system that’s mobile, cheap, and leaves a small environmental footprint.