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Folia Water from Bangladesh has won the Sankalp Global Award 2021 in the ‘Health and Wash’ category for bringing innovation to the mass consumer goods market, according to an announcement.
SANKALP is a global award system initiated in India in 2009 by Intellecap to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 across the Global South.
This year, Folia Water participated in The SANKALP Global summit along with more than 250 other impact enterprises from across the world and won the award for the best impact enterprise 2021 in ‘Health and WASH’ sector.
The final results of the awards were announced at the 13th Sankalp Global Summit held on October 12-14, said a recent news release issued in Dhaka.
Folia Filters are made of nano-silver impregnated paper that looks and works like coffee filters. Silver ions from the filter kill bacteria and other microorganisms, making the water safe to drink. It is the world’s first water filter to be sold as a mass market grocery staple.
“Unsafe drinking water is the biggest cause of hospitalisation in low income countries and our innovation is a unique solution to addressing two major blocks: affordability and accessibility,” said Mohammad Rashed, Chief Executive Officer of the entity.
He added that Folia Water already has the proof case for consumer product market fit and will start its commercial journey in multiple districts from 2022.
The innovation is said to be a unique solution for BOP communities to adapt to a drinking water filtration process at a price which matches with their willingness to pay.
US-based material scientists Dr Jonathan Levine and Dr Theresa Dankovich are the founders of Folia. Their ambition was ‘to provide an affordable solution to safe drinking water for low income segment of emerging countries’.
In Bangladesh, Folia Water is currently working in Jashore and Khulna districts and has so far provided access to safe drinking water to 40,000+ low income people through its affordable water filter solution.
In a methodical approach to increase distribution by combining social behavioural change campaigns with orthodox retail operations, Folia is on its way to commercialisation nationally and aims to replicate the same process in other emerging South Asian countries by 2024, added the release.
Folia Water’s mission is to ensure access to safe drinking water to 500 million low income people in South Asia and become the next $1.0b health staple.
Expressing satisfaction at winning the award, Mr Mohammad Rashed said “The recognition we got from the Sankalp forum is enormous and it wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support we get from our partners, investors and our team. We take pride in this remarkable recognition from such a global platform and this gives us more confidence and drive to achieve our mission of ensuring access to clean drinking water for the low income communities and be a profitable impact enterprise at the same time.”