Last year November, the Winddrinker won the TEDxAmsterdam Award. And since the beginning of April, the Winddrinker is one of five projects being supported by Ideas Worth Doing. Great developments for the Winddrinker and more than enough reason to sit and talk with Sjoerd Dijkstra, project coordinator of the Winddrinker, about this amazing project.
The Winddrinker is a low-tech, low-cost and low-maintenance way of turning salt water into clean drinking water. And all it needs for this is wind. Researchers of the Delft University of Technology developed a technology, which involves a windmill, a water pump, a transmission, and a desalination to turn salt water into clean drinking water. Sjoerd Dijkstra picked this up and saw a huge opportunity to solve (water) problems in developing countries.
I met Sjoerd on a warm and sunny afternoon. With great passion he tells me about the Winddrinker and his view on how economic growth can be established in developing countries. “Money, knowledge, and technology are essential for medium sized enterprises, which in turn are essential for the development of an economy”. To support these economies, a local entrepreneur will implement the Winddrinker in developing countries by gaining access to the technology, knowledge (about entrepreneurship and about the technology), and money needed to start the enterprise.
Land where the first Winddrinker will be built
Largely because of the huge amount of prize money won with the TEDxAmsterdam Award and other financial partners like Aqua for All, Delft University of Technology, and Hivos, enough money is raised for a first pilot. This installation will be up and running in Somaliland by the end of the summer. Very proudly, Sjoerd shows me pictures of the land where the installation will be built and tells me about the great progress that is being made.
The installation that will be built is based on a software model, able to generate the most optimal Winddrinker design, depending on local conditions like average wind speed and water quality. This model holds a tremendous opportunity for large scale roll-out: if more and more components and solutions can be added to its calculations, a more and more efficient design can be created. By making the software open source, Sjoerd believes he can achieve this goal with the power of the “WE”.
I wondered where his vision on open source software comes from. Surprisingly, TEDxAmsterdam itself showed Sjoerd the power of sharing and openness, maybe even more worthy than the great amount of prize money for the TEDxAmsterdam Award, or the guidance through Ideas Worth Doing. “Everybody can contribute to the success and development of the Winddrinker, and everybody can do this in their own way: by investing money, sharing one’s knowledge, or using one’s unique talent”. Sjoerd believes that if all knowledge and talent can be combined in a unique and constructive way, the Winddrinker should be able to become even more efficient than large desalination installations. This would make clean drinking water available for everyone. Who wouldn’t want that?
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