The EasyWAT project addresses the challenges of water sanitation and hygiene access in an Integrated Water-Energy-Digitalization (IWED) Nexus approach. The use of IoT to monitor water usage, track real-time payments, trigger maintenance, solar energy for charging phones and providing lighting in the community and mobile money for digital payments.

History:

EasyWater is a startup in the research and development stage founded by Ngang Christian Fru a Water sanitation and hygiene (WASH)/ Social Entrepreneur. The objective is to resolve the problem of water quality, accessibility, reliability and the high cost of drinking water for the population in areas lacking access to pipe-borne water or where pipe-borne water is of low quality. The startup sets to provide affordable technology to make quality drinking water accessible to all.

The particularity of this project is that it will replace hand pumps with solar-operated pumps and cash payments with mobile money (e-payment system). The use of novel technology of “The Internet of Things” (IoT) to monitor usage, track payments, detect faults in real-time and trigger maintenance for a reliable water supply.

Vision statement:

We are the one company that will bring water to all AFRICANS at their doorsteps, at a low cost.

Mission statement:

Our mission is to provide the population of Cameroon and beyond with affordable technology which will always ease access to quality drinking water. We are the one company that will bring water to all AFRICANS at their doorsteps, at a low cost.

Value Proposition:

Our project sets out to provide a consumable and a hardware product:

1. Consumable: Quality water dispensed through our easy water device for consumption of families, individuals etc.

2. Hardware: The easy water Device for private water sellers, organisations, government etc.

We are setting out to propose an affordable technology made of hardware and software components. The hardware is an embedded water dispenser capable of discharging water using Near Field Communication technology (NFC) and a mobile app for the purchase of water credit.

EasyWater system will be monitored remotely through a network connected to the IoT node. The users accessing the tap purchase an easy water credit (a digital payment credit) from easy water sellers to touch and pay at the tap. The easy water tag powered by Near Field Communication (NFC) is connected to an integrated water management system that keeps track of all water data and credit transactions.