Make the most out of your visit to the AIWW conference and stop by the Speakers Corner at break time. The Speakers Corner offers a platform to compelling cases and solutions that go beyond the programme sessions and workshops.
Marten is co-founder and CEO of Susteq, a company with the goal to get safe water to all. Marten has a BSc. Mechanical Engineering and MSc. Business Administration. During his graduation assignment for Phillips in Ghana he realised fetching water is costly for poor people. Both in time spend to reach a water source, and in health cost from drinking polluted water. The wells, treatment and other distribution infrastructure are often difficult to maintain due to difficult collection of money for service and maintenance. Based on this idea the team of Susteq has developed a community water point that gets safe water close to people. The solution consists of a prepaid water ATM that allows people to pay a small amount for water. The money is used to pay for infrastructure that pumps up water, treats it if needed and transports it to end users. We partner with local distributors, NGO's, water treatment suppliers and public utility companies. Currently Susteq is four years active in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana. Currently they reach 50.000 people via over 100 water points. Susteq has signed contracts with utility companies for installation of several hundreds of additional water points to provide safe water to over 350.000 people this year. Marten has appeared in several national media like BNR, Nu.nl, Vice-Versa and Vrij Nederland. According to Sprout he is among the top 50 most challenging entrepreneurs of the Netherlands, and via According to Livewire, Susteq is one of the 13 most innovative young Dutch enterprises. Furthermore Susteq has participated in Village Capital and Unreasonable Institute Global.