We recently came across NextDrop, a service created by a team of Stanford and Berkeley graduate students designed to inform residents of select villages in India about the water availability.
Having won a grant from the Gates Foundation, NextDrop began operations in Hubli, India last year, working with 180 participating families across five water valve districts. The next phase will involve expansion to eventually reach 1000 households covering 25 valve areas.
NextDrop serves as some kind of a communication channel between valvemen, engineers and local residents. First, valvemen call the interactive voice response system upon opening their neighborhood valves and NextDrop is taking from there, texting the inhabitants of the area the news that water is being piped 30 – 60 minutes before it arrives. At the same time, NextDrop sends live data on the water delivery to the engineers. Residents are then contacted randomly to verify the accuracy of the data supplied by the valvemen and if there are some conflicts, the engineers are alerted to step in…
It’s awesome to see mobile technology solving real-life problems and making people’s lives easier. Love it!
[Via: Springwise, MobileActive]
