Portable device gathers rain for clean drinking water

It is a cruel irony that tropical regions blessed with abundant rainfall are often cursed with an inability to deliver clean water to thirsty people. In the slums of Mumbai, for example, it rains close to half the year, sometimes in monsoon-like deluges. Yet residents are forced to stand in long lines to collect water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Alternatively, they must pay exorbitant prices for bottled water.

The same problem can happen as a result of collapsed infrastructure following a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake. It was the latter that drove home the dire message for Eyal Yassky, cofounder and CEO of Hilico. The social-minded startup developed a simple and inexpensive rain harvesting device for off-grid communities. Yassky had been traveling the world as a professional photographer, documenting local cultures with an emphasis on sustainability. In 2016, he was in Ecuador taking pictures of a unique chocolate-making operation (“There are only 47 of this type of cacao trees left in the world,” he says) when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit. Yassky had picked up some disaster-relief skills during his service in the IDF. He volunteered to help and before he knew it, he was globe-trotting with a different hat – volunteer mission commander for organizations like IsraAID – which he balanced with his ongoing photography gigs. -- More...