Being exposed to exceeding arsenic for a long period of time, like drinking arsenic-contaminated water, will cause elevated levels of arsenic in the body, which will lead to arsenic poisoning. The dominant basis of arsenic poisoning comes from groundwater which naturally has high levels of arsenic. Millions of people are probably affected by arsenic poisoning from drinking water.
We are working on a low cost, sustainable arsenic detector to detect water, which will have a human-center and bottom-up design. It would be used to aid refugees, people from rural areas and living in slums in cities. Meanwhile, we may use the data collected by the detector to form a map to visualizing the global condition of arsenic in water.Thus,in addition to the device, we need an app with which the local people who detect the water sample can upload the detection data. Also, a database is in need to collect and analyse the uploaded data.
Although we are sparing no effort to create a cheap device, large number of detectors are in need, which means it will take a great deal of money. As we all know, the areas which are in need of the detectors are almost the poorest areas throughout the world. In order to make the project a practical and meaningful one, we are planning to hand around the detectors to those in need for free. Thus, we are calling for everyone’s help, which means that we also need a crowdfunding platform, such as a crowdfunding website.
We hope that our project could help local communities find clean water in the area and assist the local government to locate areas which need more focus like more investment and more research. Also, if possible, international organizations could respond to relevant crises quicker with the help of our data.
Lingzhi Chu:ODD Summer student
finish the app and set up the website