WateROAM

Vincent Loka , Indonesia

Vincent co-founded WateROAM in 2014 to develop water filtration solutions that can be used in disaster stricken areas to give people quick access to clean drinking water. More than 70,000 people have benefitted from access to water filtering pumps in 21 countries across Southeast Asia.

More than 140 million people in Southeast Asia lack access to safe drinking water, while almost a billion have no access to basic sanitation. Waterborne illnesses are largely attributed to biologically contaminated surface water. Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and landslides can also leave people without access to clean drinking water. WateROAM works to create innovative solutions to enable people living in low-income and disaster-prone areas to treat contaminated water. WateROAM stands by the four key pillars of simplicity, portability, durability and affordability. These principles ensure that the products developed match the needs of the target market. The organisation currently has three different filtration models in production, each catering to different needs and circumstances.

In 2018, Vincent and his team were awarded the Facebook Social Entrepreneurship Award, winning $5,000 worth of Facebook advertising credits and tailored mentorship from a Facebook executive working in the Asia-Pacific region. This helped the WateROAM team to better market their products on Facebook. The advertising campaigns contributed to a 90% rise in web traffic, resulting in more than 1,000 leads and almost 6,000 new followers