Oxford University aims to crowdfund investment of £50,000 in a project to provide reliable and safe access to clean drinking water to communities in rural Africa. 

Patrick Thompson, of the university’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, has developed ‘smart’ hand-pumps which use mobile phone technology to monitor how the pumps are functioning. 

The pumps send data to mechanics if repairs are needed. In parallel, the Oxford research team spun out FundiFix, a Kenyan social enterprise that provides these repair services to rural communities. 

The combination has reduced waiting times for repairs from weeks or months to a few days and has already helped 70,000 people in Kenya gain access to a reliable source of water.

Now the university is to use its OxReach crowdfunding platform to raise the £50,000 the team needs to upgrade the IT infrastructure so that it can capture information from pumps across the continent using 4G mobile networks. 

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According to Thompson (pictured) “This data can then be shared with local engineers, with governments, NGOs and charities to ensure that water keeps flowing, and to provide transparency, increasing confidence in regulators, governments and funders that resources are being well spent and rural water services are being delivered”.

“Our work to date with FundiFix in Kenya has given tens of thousands of people access to a reliable water supply; but to be able to scale this up from a research project into something that can help more we need your support.  Making our IT system able to work at a regional scale is a critical part to that expansion that will allow us to reach hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people.”

Vice chancellor for innovation Chas Bountra added: “Imagine turning on a tap and having to wait over a month for the water to come out. Imagine realising it is not coming — and having to walk for miles every day to take water from a contaminated stream just to keep your family alive. 

“This is reality for 275 million people in Africa. We have an opportunity here to take an Oxford idea and to turn it into real-world impact that will benefit millions of lives. I commend Patrick and his team for their work and implore people who take water for granted to donate generously and change countless lives for the better.”

To date, the crowdfunding effort has raised almost £6,000 with 26 days to go. The first £25,000 pledged will be matched by the Global Challenge Research Fund. There are more details on the OxReach website here.