Wire Bridges
The terrain of Nepal, mountainous and crossed by deep river canyons, isolates villages and makes access to the rest of the country difficult and dangerous. In the monsoon season, crossing the swollen rivers is dangerous and nearly impossible. WireBridges solve this problem by spanning river gorges with a human powered carriage system. These wheeled carriages travel on cable strung be
tween anchor towers installed on each side of the river. The carriage is easily propelled by rope in the hands of passengers or bystanders and each carriage can hold up to four seated passengers. Looma
Many schools in resource-limited developing nations lack the basic necessities to provide enhanced education, such as infrastructure, reliable electricity, access to Internet, and educational content, including textbooks. Recent attempts to integrate technology into the rural classroom have proven difficult due to the lack of Wi-Fi connectivity and high cost of acquisition and maintenance. VillageTech Solutions is currently developing Looma, an affordable and low power consuming audio-visual technology device which will provide an interactive window to the internet and access to educational content to village schools that have never seen electricity, computers, or in some cases, even books. Looma is a portable projection and recording system that will provide classrooms access to the internet and educational content. The system runs on deep-cycle 12 volt batteries that are re-charged using solar power and is about the size of a small shoebox. SafaPani
Arsenic contamination in groundwater affects millions of people around the world. In Bangladesh alone, over 60 million people are exposed to contamination levels five times higher than the World Health Organization’s acceptable standard for arsenic in safe drinking water. Arsenic poisoning symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, skin disease and lesions, and can result in blood diseases, gangrene, and many forms of cancer. SafaPani, meaning "Clean Water" in Nepali, is an inexpensive household water filtering system that cuts arsenic concentrations to around 1 ppb (part per billion), well within the safe drinking level of 10ppb. In regions where contamination level often ranges above 200 ppb, access to such a filtering system is strongly needed. SafaPani is comprised of a 3 bucket filtration system and uses electrocoagulation process to remove arsenic from water. Village Sun Lights & EcoPower
In much of the world, when the sun sets, education stops, commerce stops, medical treatment stops, due to lack of light and electricity. Villagers often burn kerosene lamps which pollute the air in their houses and require costly fuel. VillageSolutions developed Village Sun Lights in partnership with VTS to bring light to rural homes in the developing world. The Village Sun Lights system evolved from a first generation model called the EcoPower system. The EcoPower system was comprised of a human pedal-powered electrical generator and an energy storage and distribution system. The current Village Sun Lights system is comprised of low-cost solar panels, a rechargeable battery protected by a charging circuit, and small LED lamps for home use. School children can study at night and their parents can cook and work after dark with no health hazards.
