Role Models: Valerine Chandrakesuma, Joe Ho, Kateryna Levdokymenko, Jay Martiniuk, Patrick Lewis Wilkie
by Miki Saxon
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.
Invent: Create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of.
Inovate: Make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.
If you look carefully there is very little actual invention going on these days, it’s mostly innovation, based on previous products.
However, sometimes innovation is radical enough that it should count as invention.
Consider the lowly toilet.
The Gates Foundation has been funding the effort to reinvent the toilet.
In 2011, the Gates Foundation launched the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge to bring sustainable sanitation and hygiene solutions to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who do not have such access. The challenge, which is ongoing, is a global call to researchers around the world to develop innovative and financially profitable systems to manage human waste. The systems must operate off-grid, cost less than $.05 per day, and function in poor, urban settings.
Even corporate giants got into the effort.
Kohler—a leading U.S. manufacturer of toilets (…) received a Gates grant in 2014, describes these toilets as “stand-alone units that take in wastewater, then disinfect and purify it to be reused for toilet flushing.”
But water is also a scarce commodity, even when it’s reused.
Now, from a group of students at the University of British Columbia, comes the MYCOmmunity Toilet.
The MYCOmmunity Toilet consists of a mycelium tank that is small enough to sit inside each individual dwelling. (…) when it’s full, the toilet is buried in the ground or left somewhere out of the way for another 30 days to allow the composting process–aided by the mushroom spores–to finish. Each toilet includes local seeds, which can be planted on top of the toilet, allowing plants or crops to grow from the human waste.
Although it was designed specifically with refugee camps in mind, it would seem to have far greater potential.
The MYCOmmunity Toilet qualifies as an invention — with the potential to truly change the world.
Image credit: 2018 Biodesign Challenge
