American innovator addresses hygienic sanitation for those living in poverty
Seven years ago, Fundación MAPFRE, a global non-profit created by MAPFRE, launched the inaugural Social Innovation Awards in partnership with IE University. The competition recognizes social impact projects in e-Health, Safe and Sustainable Mobility, and the Senior Economy.
This year’s competition held in Madrid Spain yielded U.S.-based winner, Diana Yousef, Founder and CEO of change:WATER Labs in the e-Health category with the project, “iThrone.” Her innovation is a portable toilet for human waste management for use in areas without developed water and sanitation infrastructures. The toilet eliminates 90-95% of collected waste volumes by converting them into pure clean water vapor—achieved without frequent flushing and collection.
“No other invention in all of human history has saved more lives than flush toilets, but billions of people have no access to them,” said Yousef. “The lack of safe and hygienic sanitation forces people to live in conditions of poverty, poor health and pollution. With iThrone, our solution, we will expand access to safe toilets beyond the limits of the water infrastructure.”
Yousef has been a Research Associate at MIT for the past seven years, having launched change:WATER Labs in 2012. The company is a mission-driven cleantech venture developing disruptive technologies to increase safe, sustainable, and scalable access to clean water and sanitation.
change:WATER was one of 12 finalists who advanced in the competition from 379 submitted projects. Evix Safety, an AI helmet-integrated airbag system that inflates using an AI algorithm to detect accidents, won in the Safe and Sustainable Mobility category and Cuidador de Confiança, a webapp providing training resources for caregivers to monitor patients, won in the Senior Economy category. Each winner received €40,000 to further their projects.
The non-profit Fundación MAPFRE seeks to improve people’s quality of life and promote equal opportunities by spearheading activities in more than 30 countries. In 2023 alone over 6 million people benefited from 34,000 actions in road safety, health, culture, social action, and insurance culture.
Yousef’s low-cost solution makes waste disposal clean, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly. It tackles a major global challenge with over 40% of the world’s population lacking access to safe sanitation.
Jaime Tamayo, Chief Representative of Fundación MAPFRE in the United States and Chief Executive Officer of MAPFRE USA, lauds the winning project.
“The results that Diana and her team have seen already through pilot programs in developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and Central America are a testament to the enormously positive impact her innovation can have in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.”
