I had the pleasure of attending a Rocky Mountain PDMA meeting with the Compassion International product manager for “Water of Life.”  Now, as a product development professional, I found the product story fascinating, but more importantly, did you know

every day over 4,000 children are dying of water-related diseases,
such as cholera and typhoid

and Water of Life is making a huge difference in the lives of children, their families, and their communities by providing clean water.   Clean water is easy for me.  I only need to grab a glass out of my cabinet and turn the faucet on – done.  For the majority of the world’s people who live on less than $2 a day, water does not come so easily.  Many collect water in jugs from the scarce sources available, which may be an hour or more walk for them.  These sources are often contaminated with animal and human waste.  Children suffer from diarrhea and other illnesses and many die.

Now, Water of Life is changing this by taking that filthy water and turning it into clean, healthy water.  Using technology found in kidney dialysis machines, a family can have a simple and reliable system that provides clean water. Learn more about how this live-giving system works.

Now from a product perspective, the impact does not stop there.  Compassion found a partner in Sawyer, the creator of the water purification technology.  Thanks to the interest in Water of Life, Sawyer is now selling similar systems commercially – a huge win for them.  Their partnership (between a for-profit and non-profit) has been a great win-win.  Further, for a $55 donation to Compassion you give a family the Water of Life system that provides more than enough clean water for their life (yes—amazing technology at an amazingly low cost), you’ll get a discount code to buy a similar system for yourself.  As a family that camps frequently, we jumped at the opportunity to get a system at a discount.

Does the system really work?  Compassion is already saving thousands of lives.  Also, I had the opportunity of drinking water that was muddy and gunky only minutes before being purified by the simple Water of Life system.  Here is a picture of the product manager, Geoff Peters, after pouring a cup of purified water, just like the one I poured myself minutes before – tasted great.

I love this product story.  Compassion applied their newly created NPD process, conducted ideation, grouped and refined ideas, and brought a handful forward through a stage-gate-like methodology.  Water of Life is the first one to go to market.  It is a great product with a great product story.

Even more importantly, now we can easily help families across the world help their kids avoid life-threatening illnesses. I encourage you to learn more about Water of Life.