S1 E1: Water.org’s Heather Arney Talks Innovation, Climate Change and Impact on the Global Water Crisis

Maven Minds: Trailblazers of Modern Business

In developed countries, access to safe water is an unnoticed luxury. But, by 2030, an estimated 700 million people worldwide will be displaced from their homes due to water scarcity.

Heather Arney, Senior Manager of Insights and Innovation at Water.org, and her team have invested years of research and innovation into creating ground-breaking water and sanitation solutions for remote populations.

“There's no silver bullet. There's no one size fits all. Especially with climate, this is felt so locally, you have to have different options in all different kinds of scenarios.” – Heather Arney, Water.org

Their creative approaches tackle all angles of the problem including financing, markets and on-site solutions like wells and sanitation. With the growing impacts of climate change, their solutions are being tested worldwide as they aim to solve the global water crisis.

In this episode, Heather discusses:

• Snowballing challenges and impacts of water access and scarcity
  
  
• Innovative solutions that enabled scale for their organization
  Water.org has grown from impacting 100k+ people to 45m+ with access to safe water
  
  
• Multi-faceted approaches to breaking down environmental, financial and innovation barriers

Consider and discuss: How can I apply this thinking to my business?

• Are you embracing innovation from multiple angles of your business?
  Is innovation limited to your product or technology? Are you innovating financially? Are you innovating on your marketing strategy and approach? What voices represent innovation in your company? Is innovation a core value in your business? Should it be? Is there an opportunity for greater collaboration?
  
• Is your business prepared for scale?
  Are your solutions able to support rapid scale and adoption? Will your growing solutions hold up over time? How will your business respond to needs while scaling? What funding will be needed to continue to support your solutions?
  
• What’s the environmental impact of your business?
  Are there areas of your business that are particularly harmful to the environment? How much waste is created by your business? Is your packaging environmentally friendly? How can you improve your impact on climate change? How can you support the initiatives of Water.org?

Key themes

• Innovation
• Finance
• Micro-finance
• Scale
• Environmental impact

For extended show notes, resources, and ways to connect, learn more at: mavenminds.com/season-1-trailblazers
Podcast Editor and Strategist: @episodeready