Ericsson, Telenor Connexion power smart water purification solution in East Africa

Ericsson and Internet of Things (IoT) company Telenor Connexion are helping bring connectivity to water purification micro-factories in East Africa.

The United Nations estimates that three in ten people still lack access to safely managed drinking water and one in four healthcare facilities lacks basic water services.

Wayout, a micro-brewery and water filtering firm, has engineered plug-and-play micro-factories for local production of clean, filtered water, which are solar powered and have a minimal "eco footprint."

The micro-factories are managed by a smartphone application to keep an eye on operations, monitor performance and launch autocleaning.

Wayout's smart dispensers also send data to the local operator, and to the consumers notifying them of relevant water info and metrics.

One of Wayout's water purification micro-factories.

Powered by Ericsson's IoT Accelerator, Telenor Connexion provides global connectivity to Wayout's factories, which are rolling out in East Africa now and into the Middle East, Asia Pacific and other markets in 2021.

Telenor Connexion is providing cellular IoT connectivity management services as well as SIM cards and all necessary agreements with local operators.

Wayout was founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 2018 and its container-sized 3D printer for drinks can work as a micro-brewery, soft drinks maker and a water purification system.

"Perfect drinking water should be a human right. Our idea is to make access easy and reliable. Our connected sustainable micro-factories enable infrastructure solutions and business opportunities for providing perfect drinking water locally, whilst reducing the environmental impact globally," said Wayout CEO Ulf Stenerhag.

Each micro-factory module is fully automated and can filter 70,000 liters of water, remove up to eight tons of carbon dioxide and remove the need for 200,000 plastic bottles every month. It also removes the unnecessary logistics of bottling and transporting pre-packaged glass or plastic bottles.

— The Staff, Connecting Africa