An important feature of e-toilets is that we have ensured that they are maintained clean and hygienic all the time. From our experience of installing over 350 etoilets and being in operations for more than one year, we have identified that the maintenace and management of toilets are at no cost be compromised with its technology, ambience and aesthetics. Hence, e-toilets have ensured that the "e" in it will not fend of a normal user and he is not interfacing with Technology at any stages of his usage from entry to exit. At the same time, etoilets have judiciously woven technology including that of electronics, web and mobile to remotely manage and act based on the health status being captured and updated to a web or mobile interface. We have made extensive studies on why public toilets fail after a few months of its lauch especially in India and have identified that there are no sustainable mechanisms to address cleaning and maintenance. So that is the differentiator for etoilets- which ensures that common man/ urban poor has equal access to a highly world class public sanitation facility viz. a viz his elite urban counterpart. Through our RTTC programme we aim to reinforce this commitment to the public.

Hello,
I would like to introduce to you a research grant with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which I am leading here in India:

• Title of grant: Research on Self Sustained eToilet for households/ Urban-semi urban Public/ Community Sanitation

• Subtitle (more descriptive title): Globally acceptable, water-conserving, hygienic and self-sustaining public toilets

• Name of lead organization: Eram Scientific Solutions
• Primary contact at lead organization: Bincy Baby and Ria John
• Grantee location: Trivandrum, Kerala, India
• Developing country where the research is being or will be tested: India

• Short description of the project: Eram developed India's first electronic public toilet, the 'eToilet', with unique automated features to maximize user experience (e.g. payment mechanism, doors, washing mechanisms). In this project, Eram proposes to refine the eToilet by minimizing water requirements, improving sterilization mechanisms, and reducing necessary power consumption. The final eToilet will be a completely standalone system, integrated with high-end technologies, that is sustainable in terms of cost and efficiency.

• Goal(s): Our design of the research is to develop sustainable solutions for the above cited areas, so that it can be used effectively in households, slums or in urban/semi urban locations and cities to benefit the city dwellers and the large floating populations. Hence the universality of our solutions is what we propose to highlight as an important outcome of our research. We also propose a modular and highly decoupled solution as outputs of our research so as to make them logical, easily adaptable and customizable to the demands of the respective regions while focusing on a cost-effective as well as sustainable, affordable solution. Our research direction closely aligns with the Foundation’s goal to provide affordable sanitation that ensures clean and hygienic environment while recovering recyclable components.

• Objectives: Our idea is to invent universally viable self-sustained, water conserving toilet enabled by appropriate technology and embedded with self washing and sterilization mechanism to ensure complete cleanliness. We propose to focus on improvising toilets on two areas viz. (a) clean and hygienic toilet through inbuilt sterilization mechanism (b) enclosure to make it extremely resource conserving and thus making the toilet more scalable and accessible to masses. The enclosure focuses on integrating low cost sterilization unit for public usage and reducing water usage through efficient washing-sucking mechanism. We plan to integrate high-end technologies to manufacture a completely standalone system; sustainable in terms of cost and efficiency.

• Start and end date: September 2012 to December 2013 (Phase 2 extension until 30 April 2015; Phase 3 extension until 15.12.2017)
• Grant type and size: RTTC (Reinvent the Toilet Challange) Round 2; size of Phase 3: $ 818,708
• Research or implementation partners: None
• Links, further readings – results to date:

Related forum threads:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/170-sh...ram-scientific-india
forum.susana.org/170-shared-toilets-comm...in-kerala-india#8527

See entry in SuSanA library for more documents:
susana.org/lang-en/library/library?view=...eitem&type=2&id=1713

Social Media:
www.facebook.com/delightbharath?ref=stream
twitter.com/Eramscientific
www.youtube.com/user/eramscientific?feature=watch

Videos available:



Profile of me, the project leader:
www.pid.co.za/index.php/fsm2-conference/...utions-pvt-ltd-india

++++++++++++++++++

Now I am curious to hear from you: what do you think about our project? Constructive criticism and comments? Questions?

Regards,
Bincy