EKOCENTER of coco cola company

EKOCENTER is a simple concept. In fact, it’s built inside a shipping container. It features a solar-powered water distiller – the Slingshot – developed by Dean that can transform dirty water from almost any source into 850 liters of pure drinking water a day. That’s enough for roughly 300 people. EKOCENTER can also provide phone charging, satellite uplink, household products, food and beverages and refrigeration for medicines.

In short, it can hydrate a small community, and deliver the benefits of modern technology and consumer goods. We also like to think of it as a “startup in a box” as it will provide employment to local entrepreneurs, many of whom will be women and young workers just setting out in their careers.

At the Clinton Global Initiative this week, we committed to placing 1,500 to 2,000 EKOCENTERs and Slingshot water purification systems in communities across Latin America, Africa, Asia and North America by 2015. These will complement the two pilot programs we’ve already launched in Paraguay and South Africa, where I had the privilege of opening the first EKOCENTER during my visit there.