Potable Water Generator
The University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC)
Issue 27 | June 2013
Agency
Mayo DraftfFCB, Peru
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Humberto Polar Creative Director Alejandro Aponte Juan Donalisio Art Director Juan Donalisio Copywriter Alejandro Aponte
Production Team
Video Editor Mayra Carbone Diego Santillan Alejandra Chavez Music Real Music Santiago Rámirez Audiopost
Date
December 2012
Background
The academic year for 2013 was about to begin and UTEC, The University of Engineering and Technology in Lima, wanted to get students interested in applying for an engineering degree.
Even entertainment brands struggled to attract the attention of teenagers so the University of Engineering realised it had to do something very different.
Idea
Since the University of Engineering and Technology believed that the world could be changed through engineering, the brief was to start by changing a city.
Lima was the second largest desert capital in the world so the lack of drinkable water was a huge problem. To attract attention during the application period, a special poster was constructed: the world’s first billboard to produce drinking water out of thin air.
Results
The billboard produced 9,450 litres of drinking water in three months, benefiting hundreds of families.
Applications to study engineering increased 38% on the previous year.
38% more engineers working to change the world.
The idea circled the globe through print, newspapers, internet, social media and TV with The Discovery Channel and The Weather Channel giving the billboard special coverage. Time Magazine featured the billboard on its homepage and MythBusters posted it on their fan page.
Our Thoughts
What’s brilliant about this is that the artists and the scientists came together and, no doubt, learned a thing or two from each other.
The creative people came up with the idea of condensation. Then the boffins made it work by creating five generators, which, through reverse osmosis, were able to convert the moisture in the atmosphere into drinking water.
Elsewhere in Directory 27 we have published WATER is LIFE’s terrific idea of using bitter irony to help raise donations (pages 42 to 43) but an idea like this, which is both practical and viable (I think – the billboard requires electricity but we are not told how much) could be of infinitely greater long-term value.