Elliot For Water - The App to save lives

<p> <em>"What would you do if you had the chance to save a human life by doing what you already do everyday?"                                                                                                                                                          </em><em>Andrea Demichelis.</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> This is the question that Andrea asked us when he first introduced us his idea. And now this has become the catch phrase that we, the Elliot For Water Team, ask to people when we present this project to the world.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Elliot For Water is a very simple concept: people can fund clean water projects by simply searching the web. Yes, because Elliot For Water is a search engine that uses 70% of the profit to bring safe drinking water in developing countries! Now we are here on KissKissBankBank to raise the money we need to develop the Elliot For Water App, so that it will be easier for everyone to use the search engine and therefore help even more people!</p> <p>  </p> <p> But Elliot For Water is more than a search engine, it is a movement that brings people together and puts them in the position of helping others with a simple daily action. It sounds Utopia, but it is real, and it is happening!</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>How it all started</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> Everything started with Andrea Demichelis, our director. Andrea studied Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development in Paris.</p> <p> In May 2014 he finished his BBA and MBA courses, and in October of the same year he started working on this project, with the willingness to do something positive for the world and showing that is actually possible to help people and run a business at the same time.</p> <p> He developed the project from scratch side by side with two people: Vincenza and Yannis.</p> <p> Vincenza, who is also his mother, gave him the directions for the fantastic design of the website and went with Andrea all around Italy, France and England, helping him to take the right decisions and to set up his project.</p> <p> Yannis, on the other hand, is the man who actually built the search engine.</p> <p> Together with Andrea, Yannis worked for months and months exploiting every Wifi spot of Italy and Paris, and transforming any coffee place in a new office. </p> <p> Just before the launch a new member joined the team, Costanza, a fresh graduate from London!</p> <p> Costanza is so in line with Elliot For Water's spirit, that from the day she joined the project she has never left, becoming our Business Developer.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Screen_shot_2015-09-17_at_15.56.14-1442500491" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/232569/Screen_Shot_2015-09-17_at_15.56.14-1442500491.png"></p> <p>  </p> <p> The best part of Elliot For Water is that, during the months of the development, it created a family, a group of people who really wanted to help and take part in this great initiative, and who made this project be like you see it now!</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Elliot For Water, the Search Engine</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> Newly launched on the web, <a href="http://www.elliotforwater.com/" target="_blank">Elliot For Water</a> is the search engine that is allowing more and more people to directly fund clean water projects by doing what they already do every day: search the web, completely for free. </p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p dir="ltr"> <img alt="Screen_shot_2015-09-17_at_15.11.34-1442495636" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/232531/Screen_Shot_2015-09-17_at_15.11.34-1442495636.png"></p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p dir="ltr"> Elliot For Water takes its results from Yahoo! and Google and uses 70% of its profit to give access to safe drinking water to all those people that consume contaminated water and, as a result, get deadly water-related diseases. This is what makes Elliot For Water different.</p> <p>  </p> <p> As a Social Enterprise, we believe that transparency with our users is the key of success for our project. For this reason, we have a monthly post on our blog that shows our financial results, as well as the attestation of our projects and impact.  </p> <p>  </p> <p> In our vision, we want to create a community of people conscious of the problems present in the world, who are also aware of the solutions that are available; people motivated and willing to help others and to make a positive impact in someone else's life, even if just with a small daily action.</p> <p>  </p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="304" src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FXllxdKdDk4Y%3Fwmode%3Dopaque%26feature%3Doembed&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXllxdKdDk4Y&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FXllxdKdDk4Y%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=ff2702755d9749cda571c6d6c2f3eb46&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" width="540"></iframe></p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p> <strong>How can your clicks contribute to these clean water projects?</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> This is a question that many people ask us, mostly because it is not clear how Search Engines in general make a profit. This is quite simple: the profits come from the “clicks” of the users on the sponsored links, which we have called 'Water Links'. These links are a type of advertisement that companies use to gain visibility on the web. So, every time the sponsored links are clicked, the advertisers pay a small fee to the search engine. The same happens with <a href="http://www.elliotforwater.com/search?q=London&amp;client=firefox&amp;source=opensearch&amp;language=en-US" target="_blank">elliotforwater.com</a>, the only difference is that with us, every time one of these links is clicked, money is raised to fund safe drinking water projects in countries such as South East Asia, Africa and South America.</p> <p> All this means that, simply by searching the web, with no money or extra time commitment, everyone is given the opportunity to contribute to these water projects!</p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p dir="ltr"> <img alt="Screen_shot_2015-09-09_at_16.58.07-1441810782" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/230143/Screen_Shot_2015-09-09_at_16.58.07-1441810782.png"></p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>The safe drinking water projects</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> In order to undertake the water projects, we have developed a partnership with an Italian company that designed Solar machines that purify water: Solwa Srl. Their technologies have been nominated by the UN as one of the “innovations for the Development of Humanity” in the IDEASS program. The Solwa Solar Still is a module that can purify dirty, polluted and salty water simply by using the power of the sun, which activates the natural depuration process through evaporation.</p> <p>  </p> <p> This is what we are going to use to provide a durable and self-sustainable access to safe drinking water. However, depending on the needs of the villages reached, Elliot For Water will associate to the water purifying machines also other technologies, developed by the same company, that address other issues such as infertile grounds and the preservation of foods. All these technologies will provide enough resources for the villages to become independent.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> Our aim is to intervene in the most remote areas of under developed countries because these are usually not reached by the bigger associations as it generally is more expensive. In order to do so, we are developing partnerships with small local charities or associations with the objective of collaborating with them in the projects that they will undertake or in new projects.</p> <p> We believe that this is the best way for us to intervene in the villages in an effective way, as the local charities are very much integrated in the communities and know how to approach the villages tackling the most urgent needs of the people without disrupting the local culture. </p> <p> Moreover, this is for us the best way to have full control of the budgets needed to undertake the projects and to be as transparent as possible with our users.   </p> <p dir="ltr">  </p> <p dir="ltr"> <img alt="Burkinafaso_-_febbraio_2015__14_-1441727541" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229738/BurkinaFaso_-_febbraio_2015__14_-1441727541.JPG"></p>