Samsung Electronics announced on Aug. 25 that it has completed a project in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in response to the “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge,” culminating in the development of a prototype toilet that is safe and designed for household use.
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), the research and development arm of Samsung Electronics, began working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the reinvented toilet in 2019, and recently finished the development of core technologies for the toilet and successfully developed and tested a prototype.
The event announcing the completion of the reinvented toilet project at SAIT in Suwon, Korea, was attended by Gyoyoung Jin, President and Head of SAIT; Doulaye Kone, Deputy Director, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene and Sun Kim, Senior Program Officer, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and Yong Chae Lee, External Advisor to the Foundation, along with the project’s participants from SAIT.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jay-yong met with Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on Aug. 16 to discuss the outcome of the reinvented toilet project and exchanged ideas regarding global social contribution initiatives.
During the meeting, Bill Gates shared the philanthropic vision and ongoing initiatives of the Foundation and Vice Chairman Lee expressed his commitment to using Samsung’s technologies to help address the challenges facing humanity.
Samsung plans to offer royalty-free licenses of patents related to the project to developing countries during the commercialization stage. Samsung will also continue to provide close consultation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help bring the technologies to mass production.
The two organizations will work together to identify industry partners willing to commercialize the technology, after making the design more efficient for mass production.
