Brainstorm Topics for Advisory Council Meeting

Technology Transfer, Open Source, and Responsible Review

• Strategy for building capacity
  How do we build institutions in Honduras that can provide technical support, and monitoring of AguaClara facilities? It is not reasonable to expect communities to be able to operate these facilities without any access to technical support.
• How do we provide adequate design review?
  The AguaClara design team is performing a service that is similar to a consulting firm. How do we ensure that we perform this service responsible? What legal protections are required?
• Online design tool
  • Will require some of Monroe's time to publish this online
  • How long should we continue to use the design tool "in house" to create designs before releasing the tool on the web?
  • How automated should the design process be and how automated can it be? Should we be planning for Honduran engineers to be able to download a complete set of plans for the internet, or should we just be giving them drawings of the tanks and pipes and let them do the final drawings? On the designs we're working on we have found that the slope and shape of the construction site affect the desired design a lot. Perhaps we should leave more work and flexibility to the in-country engineers.
• Patents vs. open source
  Should any of the technologies that we develop be patented? We have developed a new instrument for measuring flocculation effectiveness (FReTA: Flocculation Residual Turbidity Analyzer) that could be used by water treatment plants to evaluate their flocculators. The instrument will cost several thousand dollars and so will not be used at AguaClara facilities, but there is already interest in using it at larger municipal facilities. Shall we patent it with the hope of a revenue stream or should we release it with the hope of a larger impact?

Funding strategy

We need additional funding for Research, Design, and Education, for activities based at Cornell University and for Implementation and Capacity building in the Global South. How do we develop funding sources that are supportive and that continue to create win-win situations?

Program Growth

How do we make sure that as we grow that AguaClara continues to be a "win, win, win, win" for students, Cornell University, partners in the Global South, and communities who drink the water? There is interest from a number of Latin American countries in having a pilot project to demonstrate the technology.
Monroe is putting more time into the project than can be sustained. Delegation to students has helped tremendously this semester, but as the project grows the time required for coordination with partners, generating knowledge, documenting the technology, and reviewing designs continues to grow as well. We need to determine if we want the project to grow and then based on that determine what steps need to be taken. Possible steps include:

• Program assistant
  This semester we have tried the program assistant model at no cost to the project using a Master of Engineering TA position. A program assistant definitely makes it possible to shift significant tasks.
• Expansion to other countries
  • At what point does it make sense to start the project in another country?
  • How can we foster South to South spread of the technology so it doesn't require too much from the Cornell AguaClara team?
  • What level of involvement will the Cornell AguaClara team need to have with future partners?