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March 6, 2012
Lumia

Social Innovator Of The Week: Edwin Broni-Mensah



Time to honour another young, intelligent and inspiring individual. We at Nokia Connects love people out there who are doing amazing things, especially if their projects are for the good of others. Edwin Broni-Mensah is by no means an exception to this notion, so let’s find out why he is ‘Social Innovator Of The Week’….

….it would be too obvious for me to call Edwin the Water Boy, considering the nature of his company and his love of sport, so I won’t ;). The water bottle wielding man above is the 25-year-old founder of Give Me Tap; an organisation that reduces the wastage of landfill sites, helps communities in Africa install clean water pumps and even saves you money! Sounds like a winner to me, but how did it all begin and how does it work?

The Idea?

Edwin came up with the concept for Give Me Tap when he was playing squash at University whilst studying for his PhD. He said to us that this thought popped into his head when he was thirsty:

“Tap water is free and portable yet I was spending a fiver a day on bottled water. I was like, what am I doing!?”

So like many young entrepreneurs he acted on his instinct and transformed a thought into an award winning idea, earning him ‘Britain’s top black graduate’. Let’s get into the specifics…..

How does it work? 

Edwin designed branded recycled aluminium bottles (see above) that cost £7 to purchase from his website, consumers then take the bottles to cafes that are designated providers of the scheme. Your bottle can be filled up with tap water for free and in turn this reduces wastage that is continually created by thousands of plastic bottles in landfill sites. That’s not just it though, 70% of the money spent on the bottle is sent to Africa to help introduce clean water pumps in impoverished communities and you ultimately save money from not buying a bottle of branded water.

Here is Edwin with the full story. Enjoy!

via 

It was great to see him describing some of his work in Namibia. This is probably one of the simplest ideas I have ever praised on Nokia Connects! Do you have any friends doing amazing things to help others? You know where to drop me a line @Nokia_Connects.