Gates Foundation - hiring WASH analyst in Seattle

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is continuing to grow their WASH team in Seattle. Please apply here or direct your friends/colleagues to this position.

Position Title: Analyst, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (requisition number 2276BR)

The Research Analyst will: support the wider WSH portfolio, and the director in particular, via a variety of short term and longer term projects. Key tasks include:

• Gathering, synthesizing and analyzing quantitative data in support of strategy development, advocacy and policy analysis, and grant development;

• Reviewing, summarizing and reporting out on academic literature and policy reports in sanitation

• Desk-based due diligence of partner organizations and critical agents of change in the sanitation sector.

We are looking for people with extensive experience in developing countries. This position is limited to U.S. citizens or those with a Green Card, and relocation fees will not be sponsored.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/jobs/Pages/overview.aspx

Gates Foundation / Grand Challenges Exploration / Sanitation / Nov 2 deadline

Good morning/afternoon everyone - I should have posted this a long time ago - apologies.

For those of you with great ideas about how to solve the world's sanitation challenges, please consider applying for this early-stage Gates Foundation support. Good luck!

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The deadline for applications to our Grand Challenges Exploration is fast approaching and we want to get as many applications in as possible! Applications need to be received by November 2, 2010.

As you may have heard, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s WS&H team is currently running a Grand Challenges Exploration for sanitation. Grand Challenges Exploration is a small grants program that is soliciting proposals for the next generation of sanitation technology. From new containment devices to fecal sludge transport, treatment, and reuse, we’re looking for bold, innovative, and risky ideas that have potential to catalyze a transformation in how sanitation is implemented in the world’s rapidly growing cities. The guidelines for the sanitation challenge can be found here:

http://www.grandchallenges.org/Explorations/Topics/WaterSanitation/Pages/Round6.aspx

The application is just 2 pages, and the grant size is $100,000 for a year, to develop the idea further. We’re looking to receive a wide diversity of ideas from a wide diversity of individuals and organizations, so please circulate widely throughout your networks!

One bold idea. That’s all it takes.

Unorthodox thinking is essential to overcoming the most persistent challenges in global health. Vaccines were first developed over 200 years ago because revolutionary thinkers took an entirely new approach to preventing disease.

Grand Challenges Explorations fosters innovation in global health research. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $100 million to encourage scientists worldwide to expand the pipeline of ideas to fight our greatest health challenges. Launched in 2008, Grand Challenge Explorations grants have already been awarded to 340 researchers from 34 countries.

Open to All Disciplines: Anyone Can Apply

The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline, from student to tenured professor, and from any organization – colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies.

Agile, Accelerated Grant-Making

The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page applications and no preliminary data required. Applications are submitted online, and winning grants are chosen approximately 4 months from the submission deadline.

Initial grants of $100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to $1 million.

A link to the press release announcing the launch can be found here: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/grand-challenges-explorations-round-six-100819.aspx

Clinton Global Initiative / Water Commitments

Greetings from the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. Those of you who are familiar with the CGI model know that it revolves around commitments - people and organizations making commitments, financial and otherwise, to be part of the solution to global development challenges. A number of commitments related to safe water and sanitation were featured this year. Here are a couple:

From friends at P&G:

Today at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, former US President Bill Clinton and P&G CEO and Chairman Bob McDonald, announced P&G’s new commitment to scale-up the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program to provide 2 billion liters of clean drinking water every year in order to save one life every hour in the developing world. P&G is issuing the attached media release today to announce this new commitment. Importantly, later this week we will recognize several of our partners in providing safe drinking water. Last year, P&G recognized CARE. PSI, and World Vision at the Clinton Global Initiative. This year we are recognizing:


• U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): partnered with the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program in a collaboration that led to the development of the PUR packets, in addition to ongoing research to improve program implementation including a recent study showing that safe drinking water in schools reduced absenteeism.

• Save the Children: partnered with the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program to provide clean drinking water to school children and those in need in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, Somalia, south Sudan, and Uganda.
 
And from Coca Cola:
 

A $3.75-million grant from the Coca-Cola Company to start eight water projects in Morocco, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and other African countries that have large Muslim populations. The grant is part of a $7.5-milion project that is also being supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.N. Development Program.

Grand Challenges in Global Health / Gates Foundation

Just making sure you are following Gates’ latest Grand Challenge round. Of particular interest might be their sanitation challenge this year:

Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies

[[The goal of this topic is to generate original and innovative ideas for technologies to support sustainable sanitation services for the excreta of billions of people who are not served by centralized, waterborne sanitation. We are looking for innovations in non-conventional technologies with potential to be adopted due to their affordability, durability, convenience, aesthetic design, and effectiveness. Innovations that leverage nutrient capture, energy reuse or industrial usage may make sense as a means of adding income or reducing costs in the sanitation service delivery chain.]]

Here are the rest of challenges, including the polio eradication challenge which links polio to safe water and sanitation:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global-health/Pages/grand-challenges-explorations.aspx