We are in the midst of a global water, hygiene & nutrition crisis. 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease. 1.7 million children under 5 die from diarrheal disease annually. 1 out of 3 people people in developing countries have vitamin and nutrient deficiencies. Globally, there have been mixed results in tackling these challenges and too often solutions have been carried out with siloed approaches.

Opportunities for Design 

IDEO.org teamed up with WSUP, GAIN, Aqua for All, and Unilever to tackle this three-fold water, hygiene & nutrition crisis with a human-centered design approach aimed at creating a unified and market-based solution to this challenge.  

The IDEO.org team began the project by traveling to Nairobi to understand consumers, context and possibilities on the ground in Kenya. The team spent two weeks in Nairobi, where it interviewed 50 people, prototyped 2 fully-functioning kiosks, 1 mkokoteni cart, and 1 delivery service. The team even managed to sell 520 liters of clean drinking water during the research process!

What We Designed

After returning to San Francisco to begin the design phase of the project, the IDEO.org team ultimately designed a strong woman-friendly brand coupled with a high touch subscription service for clean water, hygiene, and nutrition products. 

Over the coming months, the clients will be piloting two versions of the SmartLife service in Nairobi with different versions of the following service model:

1. A friendly SmartLife sales agent comes to the customer's home weekly to take customized orders and provide top quality service.
2. Customers order and pay for a personalized selection of water and health and nutrition products on a weekly basis.
3. Orders are sent to our treatment facility where water is filtered and delivery containers are filled.
4. Water and product orders are delivered by truck and carried into customer's homes by friendly SmartLife Delivery staff.

Check back soon for results from the SmartLife pilot. In the meantime, learn more about the project by downloading these excerpts from the IDEO.org team's final project deliverable.