
AsianScientist (Apr. 7, 2020) – What seems like a given to most of us is still a privilege for many. Almost two billion people in the world do not have access to a toilet, a staggering 600 million of whom live in India. This number was serious enough for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to launch an aggressive, country-wide campaign to eliminate public defecation.
While developing countries with large populations like India and China are now actively seeking sanitation solutions, Singaporean visionary Jack Sim had the foresight to set up the World Toilet Organization almost two decades ago in 2001 to improve toilet and sanitation facilities around the world.
Besides campaigning to make sanitation a priority on the development agenda, the organization also educates people on the best practices and standards in sanitation, both in the urban and rural contexts, through their World Toilet Colleges.
The World Toilet College operates in India, Singapore, China and Indonesia, training individuals in sanitation practices and also imparting lessons on effectively communicating about a topic that is often shrouded in stigma. They also engage students in conversations about hygiene promotion, public policy and social entrepreneurship and teach them the basics of plumbing.
The next step for Sim is to put toilets to a greater use than they are originally intended for: cancer detection. He is currently working with a startup called Clinic AI that fits toilets with a hyperspectral camera and a nano nose to analyze feces and check for cancer markers by using artificial intelligence (AI). The device remotely scans stools and runs the information through a database which uses machine learning algorithms to analyze the data.
“We believe in the old saying that prevention is better than cure. We think that preventive and predictive medicine will be the trend in the future,” said Sim.
Beyond ensuring human dignity through access to proper toilets, Sim also strongly believes in the economic empowerment of the poor. He established the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Hub with a vision to create a marketplace where individuals and organizations can come together to end poverty.
“All the solutions to poverty have already been found but why are we not using them? It’s because the solutions don’t come together within the ecosystem,” according to Sim.
In addition to limited access to basic necessities due to a lack of income, those living in poverty often have to pay more for lower quality goods and services due to market inefficiencies in production and distribution. BoP Hub aims to remove this ‘poverty penalty’ by removing market inefficiencies and facilitating collaboration between industries.
The World Bank estimates that almost half of the world’s population lives on less than US$5.50 a day. This also means little or no access to water, sanitation and basic amenities, all of which Sim hopes to change through his efforts at the BoP Hub and the World Toilet Organization.
“After having done 20 years of work in sanitation and creating a global movement, I have realized that you don’t need a lot of resources to change the world. You just need to mobilize everybody to come together,” he added.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine.
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