Wangari Mutuiri

Kenyan inventor developing low-cost water purification systems for rural communities

Wangari Mutuiri's 2020 invention of the Solar Water Filter Kit has provided clean drinking water to over 500,000 people in East Africa. This portable system combines solar-powered distillation with charcoal filtration, costing just $25 - a fraction of traditional solutions. Featured in Nature Sustainability, her innovation won the 2021 African Innovation Foundation Prize and Gates Foundation grant.

In 2023, she launched Drops of Life, a social enterprise training local technicians to maintain systems in 23 villages. Her 2022 partnership with UNICEF expanded the initiative to drought-prone regions in Ethiopia and Somalia. A 2020 TED Fellow, her talk highlights how 90% of communities using her systems saw cholera cases drop by 80%. MIT Technology Review named her one of Africa's top innovators under 35 in 2022.