Exhibit: Caddisfly: Water and Soil Quality Testing, on a Smartphone
Current water and soil quality testing systems can be hard to use in the field, and lab-based tests are expensive and cause delays. Resulting data is generally difficult to share making it hard to act on it quickly and to engage communities who don’t know about problems in their local water supply, or farmers about their soil quality.Smartphones transform water quality and soil quality measurement, making results accessible in real time. Testing can scale up on a very affordable basis, with data immediately accessible and shareable via an online dashboard. It can lead to faster, better interventions and action. Because it’s cheap and easy to use, citizens may eventually be able to test their own water supply, thereby democratising data collection.
About: Akvo is a not-for-profit foundation that creates open source, internet and mobile software and sensors. We work with people improving infrastructure and services, for disadvantaged populations.We focus on making international development and country governance more effective, transparent and collaborative.Around the world, we help our partners act to improve the management of water, sanitation, agriculture, health, energy, education and the environment.