{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"On the Ground","title":"Drinkwell (Bangladesh)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":668,"description":"Drinkwell grew out of a laboratory breakthrough. Bangladesh's groundwater naturally contains arsenic, and the World Health Organization estimates that twenty to forty-five million people nationwide drink arsenic-contaminated groundwater year-round — a crisis it has called \"the largest mass poisoning of a population in history.\" In 2012, Bangladeshi American Minhaj Chowdhury, environmental engineering PhD Mike German, and Lehigh University professor Arup K. SenGupta took HIX-Nano — a hybrid ion-exchange nanotechnology developed in SenGupta's lab — out of the university and formally founded the company in 2013. The technology removes both arsenic and fluoride, can be regenerated and reused, costs 70% less than conventional reverse osmosis, and is far more water-efficient (RO typically wastes 40% to 60% of the water fed into it).\nDrinkwell started out selling equipment, but quickly found that Bangladesh's utility companies could neither afford nor maintain standalone units. So they pivoted to an \"embedded\" partnership model: instead of competing with utilities, they plug into a utility's existing pipe network and take on the most technically demanding piece — removing arsenic and fluoride — delivering purified water to residents through community \"water ATMs.\" This model has grown Drinkwell from a startup into Bangladesh's national water-security infrastructure operator: in 2026, the Asian Development Bank approved a $138 million sovereign loan to fund the expansion of its water-ATM and treatment-plant network nationwide. As of 2026, Drinkwell operates more than 300 water ATMs and 700-plus treatment plants across Bangladesh, has purified over 2.5 billion liters of water, and serves roughly three million people. In 2025, a similar project in West Bengal, India won the Assocham National Water Award, suggesting the model can replicate across regions.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/b4GoFgZrvvywHSq52KSocF9Jy38l2B6pTw7djBFBZ4s/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iYmVm/YjMyMmQ4NGZiZDZl/NTA4Zjk0MDcxNmZm/NjcwMC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}