A Humanitarian Water Filter

Born of the urgent need its developers witnessed firsthand amid their work in South America, Baylor International Filsa Water, the Colombian Red Cross, and Ogilvy Colombia partnered to create Filter Caps to make untreated water safe for consumption. "Every day in Colombia, the news is about child malnutrition in isolated or forgotten communities like La Guajira and El Choco," says Fabio Quiroga, Ogilvy Colombia's CEO. "So our team was really motivated to push boundaries." They used 3D-printing to craft layers of sweet-corn resin that shape the fixture that attaches to the top of a bottle, which users can fill from a well, pond, or river. Inside the cap, a chemical mixture of metals, minerals, and other ingredients (like activated carbon) filters out contaminants, impurities, and mineralizes the water to make it safe to drink. Each filter costs less than $6 and can filter 5 liters of water a day, and the company estimates that the 1,000 units they've distributed will provide as many 10,000 people with clean drinking water.

Learn More at Ogilvy Colombia Filter Caps