If you haven’t heard of Akvo yet, you should head over to their site to take a look. I was originally quite impressed with the idea, but I didn’t have a chance to blog about it yet.
Akvo is a site that attempts to use the internet as a tool to help provide clean water and sanitation throughout the world. The site has three main functions: match funds and projects, provide technical information regarding water and sanitation technology, and allow simple reporting for the projects.
Now, I know that everyone gets asked to give to charity all over the place, but the thing I like about akvo the most is that it’s not just another fund raiser. Sure, you can sponsor projects through the site, but you can also help by providing some expertise in the the field of water and sanitation. The site hosts their own wiki page (aka “Akvopedia“) that allows people to edit and create articles about water and sanitation technologies. This is a great site for the experienced engineer who would like to make a difference with something besides the wallet for once.
Also, the site is great to learn and follow along with various projects that are under development. Visit the projects page to see various projects from around the world, along with information and in some cases, updates along the way. They recently even added RSS functionality to make following these updates even easier.
In a world where technology is developing so fast, it’s great to see projects like akvo.org that try to use technology to improve the lives of our fellow humans.
