Eram Scientific wins award

Eram Scientific Solutions, an affiliate of the Alkhobar-based Eram Group, has won a special award from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for developing an innovative toilet. Siddeek Ahmed, CMD of Eram Group, received the award during a ceremony in New Delhi recently.
The foundation had earlier announced Eram Scientific Solutions among the winners of its Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, which was aimed at encouraging research centers to develop “next-generation” toilets that will deliver safe and sustainable sanitation to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have it.
The charity’s awards recognize researchers from leading universities who are developing innovative ways to manage human waste, which will help improve the health and lives of people around the world.
Eram’s eToilet has crossed 400 installations across India. Built in stainless steel, the innovative features of these air-conditioned toilets include coin or card-based access control, self-cleaning, sensor-enabled water conservation, automatic seat sterilization, vacuum flushing, touch-free switches, European squatting pan, automatic urinal and sensor-enabled wash basin.“We are assiduously working to improve public sanitation through fully automated and electronically managed toilets,” said Ahmed. “It opens the door to quality sanitation infrastructure to the common man,” he added.
Eram Scientific is also collaborating with California Institute of Technology and Duke University for integrating their processing units with eToilet’s “general public” and “school” models. Eram’s eToilets were on display at the Reinvent the Toilet fair in New Delhi.
One year ago, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation issued a challenge to universities to design toilets that can capture and process human waste without piped water, sewer or electrical connections, and transform human waste into useful resources, such as energy and water.