The Route to Medan Belize could have been the Road to Thatta in Pakistan.  Even down to the brightly coloured buses and Taxis.  Mothers and children, heavy loads of washing, water atop their heads, rubbish and broken rocks everywhere, people trading on every inch of footpath and free road space and Coca Cola pushing their sugary brands of soft drinks to a new generation.  It was amazing, beautiful and sad all at the same time.  After 100 yards of travelling down a bumpy rubble strewn road David stopped the land cruiser.  We had 3 miles of wet rocky descent ahead of us.  He pushed hard to engage low-gear and then we were off again.

The journey was akin to the controlled crashing of a rollercoaster combined with off road rallycross. Secretly David loved it and what man wouldn’t!

Shaken and most definitely stirred we drove slowly into the village of Medan Belize, a small fishing village 1 ½ hours east of Port-au-Prince, on the banks of lake Saumatre, a salt water lake on the border with the Dominican Republic.

We were in Haiti and in this village in particular to see the very first LIFESAVER project set up buy the Aid organisation Operation Blessing (www.ob.org).  Remarkably this village had LIFESAVER jerrycans before the Earthquake hit on 12 January 2010.  The villagers were to take part in a pilot project, coordinated through our US distributor Lifesaver USA (www.lifesaverusa.com), to test and weigh up the benefits and advantages of the jerrycans over what they currently had.  Little did we know then that just over 2 months into the project disaster would befall their country.

David Darg from Operation Blessing introduced us to Prophet.  Prophet lived 50 yards from the banks of the lake.  He used to live further down the hill but since the quake he has had to move twice as the level of the lake continues to rise. Prophet is currently building a new house but until the roof goes on he must live with his son next door. 

Prophet is lovely man with a halo of children dancing around him everywhere we went.  I wanted to see LIFESAVER in everyday use and asked Prophet to show us into his home.   And there was his LIFESAVER jerrycan.  A bit dirty with a splattering of red paint on the handle and up the sides.  What was I expecting, a scene from, Homes & Gardens?!  We don’t worship our drinking water tap, we just use it.  So did Prophet.

Prophet explained that every morning after washing their teeth for 15 minutes (My children, please take note) the whole family would come back to the house and get their morning drink of water.  Almost from day 1 of receiving their LIFESAVER jerrycans from Operation Blessing this has been their routine.  ‘And what water do you use for cooking’ I ask. ‘The rain water’ says Prophet.

I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t put all their water through the jerrycan. ‘Only drinking water from here’ says Prophet, ‘so my children don’t get sick.’

The Villagers' water comes from 2 sources.  The first is rainwater, collected off the tin roofs of their huts.  That is the easy way.  When the rains hold off they have to make the arduous, blister inducing slog 3 miles up that steep rocky road every day just to reach the main road. They then have a further ½ mile to the nearest well. Oh yes and then they have to come back with 50 kilos of water pulling at their arm sockets.  It still took us 30 minutes in our 4x4!  If I had to do this every day I am sure I would only use it for drinking water as well.

Prophet fully understands the value of water.  He has a lifetime of memories of his children being sick through drinking it.  So when he acquires something that stops this cycle of sickness in its tracks he is going to cherish it and use it only where it is needed.  Prophet knows that boiling water kills bugs and therefore using sterile water for cooking is not necessary.  He and his family don’t use sterile water to wash in, they have the lake.  When drinking water is scarce you naturally conserve it.

We asked Prophet jokingly if we were to take the LIFESAVER jerrycans away from his village what would he do.  ‘No you can’t’ he replied not getting the joke but smiling politely anyway.  Trying another tack I ask Prophet ‘how much is a jerrycan worth to you’.  ‘There is no price, it is priceless’ he says. ‘OK’ I say ‘ but if I was to offer you $1000 or $5000 could I buy it from you’.  ‘No no’ he says looking even more confused, and now a bit angry ‘it’s not for sale’.

Prophet did not get this western value system when it came to water.  Now I would think that offering a man $5000 dollars; which in Haiti is the equivalent to over 9 years earnings would be worth biting an arm off for, but not Prophet.

That is when I saw that Prophet was the one who truly understood the value of water.  Water is, monetarily priceless.  How do you quantify the monetary value of your family and your children.  If your children had previously been constantly sick and facing death but now were happy and well, what would you do?  Would you give it up? Would you sell it?......................................No! 

And this is Prophet’s point.  There is no monetary value to water, it is as he says price less, without price.

As an inventor, manufacturer and businessman I need to ‘paradigm shift’.  Prophet is right, clean water is priceless.  But in my world there is a price for cleaning it and a profit required to do it.  So my challenge is to get the $ value of clean water so low that it hardly registers on the monetary scale of the average Haitian earning less than $2 per day. Oh and still make a profit from Prophet!

 

Too many people have forgotten about Haiti.  I am looking forward to seeing how we are really making a difference.  We have had LIFESAVER jerrycans in country for over a year now and I am going back to see the impact they have had on peoples lives.

I am excited to be working with Operation Blessing who have worked so hard in Haiti over the past year and I’m looking forward to meeting David Darg from OB.  He is a true Humanitarian!

 Short Blog but will update once I am there.

The expansive smoked glass windows in the lobby of the Sheraton Karachi bowed inwards like the walls of a balloon.  Convex immediately turns to concave.  I knew something was wrong.  My friend Aijaz with his back to the window carried on talking as he could not see what was happening.  I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to the cold marble floor.  A split second later an angry swarm of smoked glass shards blunderbuss over our heads.  Stay down I shout at Aijaz.  An angry smell of explosives hangs in the air and people are transfixed in the moment.

Ears ringing we shuffle a bit closer the wall. I begin to assess the situation.  It had to be a bomb.  I keep telling Aijaz to keep down.  If they are going to follow up, now is the time.  I over turn a sofa for some extra cover and we crouch down further.  Aijaz thinks we should move but I tell him we should wait for a bit.  There are often secondary explosions designed to take advantage of the confusion.

I phone my wife.  She is driving home from work so I decide not to tell her.  Better to wait until she gets home from collecting the children from school.  At least if she sees the news she will know that I am safe without me having to tell her.

I phone my friend Ali Charanya in Karachi to tell him I am safe but he does not pick up.  I call another, Imran who picks up.  I tell him I am safe.  I ask him to tell others who I know will be concerned.  2 minutes later I get a text from Ali Siddiqui making sure that I am ok.  (I was to discover later that both Imran and Ali both cheated the whole experience by seconds)

After 40 mins, ringing in my ears subsiding Aijaz and I stand up.  I think that it is safe now.  We get a glass of water at the bar and I share a cigarette with Aijaz.  Normal services begins to resume itself and waiters and staff start-up their brooms sweeping away the lifeless shards of glass. The drama is over and I don’t want to write any more about it……………………… 

 

In 1927 Shiv Rattan Mohatta commissioned the building of the Mohatta Palace (www.mohattapalacemuseum.com) in the affluent suburb of Clifton, Karachi.  Shaped, carved, chiseled and lovingly crafted from a mixture of locally quarried yellow and pink Gizri and Jodhpur stone its astonishing latent beauty only reveals itself as the sun sets.  Constructed at a time of great wealth and prosperity Mohatta Palace symbolised the coming of age of Karachi as an important regional and international trading port.

 

Symbolism is important in Pakistan.  Assembling the speakers for this conference was certainly designed to demonstrate that the coordination of Government, Agency and Private sector bodies could be achieved. (http://tribune.com.pk/story/74352/un-helps-corporate-sector-unite-for-a-cause/)

I have attended many conferences in my time most all of whose aims have rapidly withered the moment the bar has closed.  What makes this gathering different is the man behind it, Ali Jehangir Siddiqui. As the Mohatta Palace only reveals itself to a certain light so does Ali.  Driven by a deep routed sense of Noblesse Oblige Ali is on a mission.  It is not about the Aid or its delivery, although he and his team are clearly making this happen in spades.  It is about the future of his country, Pakistan.  It’s about rebuilding a nation not through tents or hand-outs but through the mechanics of the free market and private enterprise.

Pakistan is a nation of dormant and embryonic entrepreneurs.  Given the right climate phenomenal growth awaits.  China knows this.  In 1995 China and Pakistan shared the same GDP (per capita) but today it is a completely different story.  The difference, watering (and no the irony is not lost on me) of the entrepreneurs.   Ali knows this as well.

These great floods, tragic as they are have washed away the old Dickensian life of millions of people.  The hopes of a nation rest on a few good men like Ali to create the new mechanics for growth. Small sustainable businesses turning a profit, employing people and contributing to the economies GDP.  Turning $1 into $2 is a lot easier than turning $1 into $1000’s.  And so it is with growing a country.

I want to play my part in Ali’s Siddiqui’s vision.  Sustainable access to safe clean water is a keystone to this vision.  People have to be healthy to work.  If everyone drank clean water imagine the consequences. 

Working with Ali and his team I hope to be able to deliver this keystone, first to Sindh province and then to the rest of Pakistan.  Local manufacture, local jobs and a solution that matches local affordability’s will help deliver this. Let’s see how we do in the coming months shall we.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting website giving stats on current situation in Sindh.  Take a look:  http://210.56.8.102/cccm/

 

 

 

I thought that I would never get round to booking my trip again.  Work can really suck you in and while I know that I am doing some good things back in the UK there is no feeling like actually getting out into the field and helping.  Besides my new MD, Frank Rose is holding the fort (well actually he is running it now) so all is well.

I was due to fly into Karachi on Tuesday 9^th November.  However the Mahvash And Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation have organised a conference ‘United for a Cause’ taking place on Monday 8^th November.  The conference will be jointly hosted by the United Nations, MJSF, JS Bank and the Provincial Disaster Management Authority Sindh.  I managed to change my flights so here I am.

The aim of the conference is generate action to rehabilitate this devastated country and I hope that I can do my part.  Given the industriousness of the Pakistani people there is every chance that with the right kind of investment, Pakistan can come out of this tragedy stronger and fitter than it has ever been before.  This is nation building, again.

Travelling from Jinnah International Airport into Karachi today I seemed to detect a slightly more vibrant feel to the place.  People seemed to move about the city in a more industrious way than when I was here last. 

Along the route to my hotel I counted 7 ‘Polio vaccination points’.  They are run and organised by the Capital City Transport Police.  Polio is a disease that we in the west have all but a forgotten about.  However it is spreading again here in Karachi and the ‘Let’s Kick Polio out of Karachi’ campaign is designed to try and do just that.  In an amazing link of fate if you look behind the Polio vaccination station you will see a poster advertising the 'United for Change' conference.

I’m going to grab 20 mins kip and then I’m off the to conference.

 

 

Life for me is, well normal again.  I do miss Pakistan!  I feel more able to make a difference there. Life seems to have filled in all the free gaps again.  Pakistan was liberating.  I will go again soon.

Having pushed a hole in my day for something I wanted to do I have finally put together a short video.  Looking through the footage that I had It was clear I was far too busy enjoying the moments than being a professional cameraman.  Never the less I hope you can see in this video all the joy and excitement that I saw on the peoples faces as they realized that they had clean water to drink.

I hope you like it.

Relaxing on my comfortable leather sofa at home in the UK I am finding it increasingly difficult to write my blogs.  Why?  Well I’m not sure yet though I suspect it has much to do with falling back into the normalcy.  What ever it is it is frustrating.  I am really enjoying telling the stories of Karachi, it’s people and their struggles. 

I look at my watch, 19:32, it’s taken 48 minutes to write these 5 lines.  Aaaagghhh!! I think I’ll stop, help get the kids and their stuff ready for school; my youngest has to wear her PE kit tomorrow and “oh Daddy, have you seen my school shoes,” and press on later in the evening…………….

………………I wanted to make the most of Tuesday.  The next morning I would be snuggled into my business class seat headed west to my family and our warm, safe house. 

We left early, heading once more for Mr Abdul Wahid Uqail house (The District Commissioning Officer, DCO) to load up with LIFESAVER jerrycans.  Abdul was back at his office tending to the normal business of government but Maqsood his trusty commandant was there ready to go.  ‘Come come’ he said again in that now familiar believable voice.

We were to spend the rest of the day out on the causeways helping the villagers who had not been reached by the agencies.

With not a cloud in the sharp cyan sky we set off again.  The warm breeze had edged out the humidity of the previous day and life seemed a little happier. Harry careered his way towards our first stop, Maqsood seated in the back giving the occasional directions.  We pulled up on a dusty azoic section of one of the many causeways.  Azoic it should have been but the villagers had again been forced to perch there, clawing onto life.  NASA had decades to plan their journey to the inhospitable surface of the moon.  These people had only a few hours.

This unforgiving landscape was shot through with the bright prismatic colours of the sarees, kameezs, shawls and blankets that were stretched out to dry on thorny leafless twigs that defined the boundary between the floodwaters and the causeway.

Barren as this place was, you could detect a sense of anticipation on the faces of those we approached.  Quickly a huddle formed around Harry and Maqsood and within a minute a young man was heading down to the floodwaters to fill the LIFESAVER jerrycan.  As he carried it back more people had gathered around and the village elder was now being talked through how to use the LIFESAVER jerrycan by Harry.  Harry wasn’t a policeman anymore.  His purpose had changed.  His subconscious spirit had taken over and his purpose was to help his brothers and sisters break free from the terrible shackles of this natural disaster. 

The village elder had told Harry told they had tried to clean their own water.  Taking the flood water and putting it in old 1.5 litre bottles they would leave it out in the sun to stand for ½ hour.  This would allow some of the dirt to settle to the bottom.  They would then cyphon off the cleaner water and use this.  Below is a picture of the before and after bottles.  Can you decide which one was cleaner?  No, nor could I.  It is actually the one on the left!

We were about to move to our next location when a UNFPA (http://www.unfpa.org) truck pulled up.  In it was a UN official and a doctor.  Not missing the opportunity to impress upon them our work I darted forward and gave them a demonstration.  “I never knew this existed” the official said, “this is amazing, where can we get hold of these.” I proceed to tell him of the great work the JS Foundation was doing and that if he would like to get hold of them Maqsood was the man.  I hooked them up, gave the UN guy a LIFESAVER jerrycan and again got ready to leave.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man in a white coat, stethoscope draped around his neck and two female Pakistani doctors.  They were slowly making their way down the causeway trying to help wherever they could.  “What are you doing here?” they asked in perfect English.  “Giving your people a means to clean their own water.” “That’s what I have been trying to do” the doctor said, “but I can’t.”  In his right hand a cluster of shiny foil strips.  The red printed text suggested medication of some sort.

He explained that the previous day he had handed out strips of flocculating tablets to the villagers but when he returned the following day some of the people had taken them orally instead of putting them in the water.  “It was terrible” he said, “we had to stop handing them out immediately and rush a couple of people to hospital.”  Many of the people, he explained were illiterate.  It was rare that they ever saw tablets and when they had they were for putting in the mouth, ‘not in a drink’.

This Doctor, a man who had who had taken the Hippocratic Oath, had to abandon the one tool he had in his arsenal because it had turned against him.  Tragic yes but I would argue an inevitable consequence of applying ill thought through western responses to eastern natural disasters.

I saw another response to the provision of safe water was to deliver 5 litre and 1.5 litre plastic bottles of the stuff.  I wrote about it before.  The trouble is that even if you can distribute these to 300 people in a day you have to visit the same 300 people again the next day.  Supporting this logistics chain is nigh on impossible.  To make the point, by comparison it costs $400 dollars per litre of fuel just to get fuel to the pumping station in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.  Imagine the costs to ship water, on a daily basis to all corners of this tragedy.  Exactly!  This is why people continue to suffer.  Oh and don’t get me started on the environmental legacy of these plastic bottles!

We headed on to the next and the next and the next place.  Every time we stopped, the expectant faces, children running around with their cheeky grins and Harry with his sermon like pitch. They hung on to his every word.

As we made our way up and down the causeways that crisscrossed Thatta, I felt calm.  It was as if my purpose was being realised.  Every stop meant 100 to 300 people could provide themselves with safe drinking water.  Almost as important we would not have to return there again.  They could fend for themselves.  Fantastic!  Life certainly was a lot happier.

 

A few months ago the British Library invited me to give an opening talk for their new exhibition, "Inventing the 21st Century".  I was very please to accept.  They had invited me to talk about my invention, how I thought that it had contributed to 'inventing the 21st century' and then make a few comments about the facilities at the Library.

About 6 weeks ago I decided that I had to go to Pakistan and find a way of trying to help the flood victims.  2 weeks ago I got an email from a friend of mine Chris Anderson the curator of TED.com.  He and his wife Jacqueline Novogratz the founder of the Acumen Fund wanted to find a way to help as well.  I met them both last year at TED09 in Oxford where I had the great privilege and honor of speaking.  (For those of you who are interested it is here http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter.html)  

We went back and forth a bit and to my complete astonishment they offered to donate a considerable sum of money to help get my LIFESAVER jerrycans out to Pakistan. Now for those who want to see Chris and Jaqualine's experiences whilst they were in Pakistan please visit here, TEDchris.posterous.com.  The imagery, language and experiences they share here are really moving and reveal what you are not being shown in the media.

So in modern parlance a 'BIG UP' to Chris and Jacqueline for making my trip possible and giving 10's of 1000's of Pakistani's the ability to provide their own clean sterile water in the midst of what can only be described as a sort of 'Mad Max/Water World landscape.

So......... After knowing that I was going to Pakistan sooner than planned I knew I would have all of the experiences I needed to put my talk together.

On the PIA flight back from Karachi I busily set about preparing my speech.  Being quite into the whole blogging experience now I took a photo of my scribbling's 1/2 way through writing them. (not quite sure why but it just kind of felt right.)

Standing in the wings waiting to deliver my 5 min speech; lets just say the schedule was extending well beyond the alloted time,  I was just about to go up when it was quietly whispered in my ear "if I could just talk for 2 1/2 minutes that would be great". GREAT!, GREAT!, I thought.  I just missed out on 5 hours sleep on a plane back from Karachi to be told I could not give my prepared talk.  As I approached the stage I was actually thinking sod that I am going to give it anyway.  However as I looked out over the lectern and saw the expressions on the audience's faces something inside of me changed.  I decided to throw my prepared speech aside and just talk about Pakistan and my experience there. 

My Wife, unknown to me decided to video it.  Being at the back with a little camera; it is not BBC broadcast quality but you can just about make out what I was saying.  I apologies now as at some points I was rambling a bit but I think I was able to get a message across.  The UK Minister of Industry the Honourable Jim Prentice was there and I think that we managed to get him thinking.  The whole experience was a bit emotional but I was glad I did it this way in the end.  

So here is the talk that I actually gave......( And I took 6 minutes (-; 

And below is a copy of the talk that I never actually got to give.  (You decide)

Start-

Thank you all for coming and I would personally like to thank Steve Van Dulkan the curator here for inviting me to speak at this exhibition “ Inventing the 21st century”

Steve asked if I could mention a little about myself, my inventions and my work.

I invented LIFESAVER because I got angry.  I watched in horror  the events of the Asian Tsunami in 2005 and Hurricane Katrina in 2006.  I got angry because in this the 21st century we did not have an adequate solution for the provision of safe drinking water for these displaced peoples.

‘Adequate’ is rather a generous word.  The solutions that I saw then may as well have come from the 10th century.

Inspired by this I invented the LIFESAVER bottle and latterly the LIFESAVER jerrycan.  These inventions work on some very simple principles the main one of which is that if you have a hole this big and a virus this big, it is just not getting through.  I would be pleased to be able to demonstrate my products to you later on in the evening.

So why invent?  Well it is in our nature and us Brits happen to be particularly good at it.  For someone like me it is an incurable habit and for others it could be just the one thing that has inspired them.

Inventing and inventions are key to the survival of our planet.  Without them we may never have made it out of the caves and without continuous invention now we may well have to go back to the caves at the end of this century.

So what has my invention done to help change the 21st century – he asks modestly.  Having just returned from Pakistan this afternoon I am overwhelmingly delighted to report to you that actually, quite allot.

When we arrived in Karachi on Saturday and spoke to the Agencies on the ground we quickly discovered that it was not in the sprawling camps our help was needed, it was in the remote villages and along the many causeways that run along the sides of the fields where the people had fled to that needed our help the most.

These people had not, could not or would not move from their lands.  Agencies had not reached this far and 100’s of thousands of people were not getting clean water, food or medicine.

So we got in our 4x4 loaded up with LIFESAVER jerrycans and working in conjunction with local government officials, began to distribute them.  Each village community had between 1 and 300 people in them so we handed out 1 jerrycan per 100 people. 

After the first few sites we managed to get the whole process down to about 15 minutes each time moving onto the next set of displaced people. 

During my short stay we provided over 20 villages and between 2500 & 3000 people with the ability to process their own safe clean drinking water and we only had to go there once.  The villagers would be able to provide for themselves for almost 6 months.  With the number of cans we have in country now we should be able to help 100,000 people with safe drinking water.  I would also like to say a special thank you to Chris Anderson the Curator of TED.com and Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund who graciously donated a very large sum of money allowing 500 LIFESAVER jerrycans to be purchased and donate to those forgotten Pakistanis in desperate need.

Now all of my work would not have been possible if I had not been able to commercialise my ideas.  I was talking with a friend of mine who had recently attended a sales course for patent attorneys where the trainer insisted they tell their clients, without patents their clients would face the immediacy of competition and would quickly go bust and therefore my friends skills were a vital part of his clients survival and success.

Well I have to tell you that this trainer was wrong on so many levels.  But within what he as saying there was some truth.

If you do grow and get big and profitable and your IP is worth pinching, someone will.   But you have to make a decision. Can my initial investment afford the patent costs, can I afford the costs, what countries should I file in, is it worth it, why am I doing it and how strong will the patents be if I am granted them.

All these things take allot of time, research and hand holding to get them through, with many good ideas fall by the wayside in these early stages. 

When I started down my path I did not know that such a great facility as we have here at the Business & IP Centre within the British Library existed.  I was lucky, I bumped into a now very good friend (Peter Finnie of GJE, who happens to be here tonight) on a ski holiday.  He was the one who helped me in those difficult and early stages.

Having seen the great facilities that Steve and his team have assembled here at the British Library I would encourage you all to see them, use them and spread the word about them.

In this the 21st century, the Great British Inventor needs all of the help and support he can get competing with the emerging powerhouses of China, India, Brazil, Pakistan and others.

So congratulations to all of the Great British Inventors here today.  You are a tribute to this Great British tradition.  And with that I would like to formally invite you all to look around this magnificent ‘Inventing the 21st Century Exhibition’.

Thank you, and thank you for coming.

- End.

More of my experiences from Pakistan in my next blog.  And while I am writing a big thank you to all of you who have been reading and commenting on it.  Thank you!

 

 

 

Only now that I have spent some real time here in Pakistan do I begin to see the real picture.  It has been many long weeks since the start of the floods. Governments, International and local Aid agencies have set up their camps in many areas and the ones that I have seen and heard about appear to be run well.  One German journalist I spoke with this evening in the bar of the Sheraton recounted a story of the previous day.  He had visited a camp set up and run by the Pakistan Army in Sindh province.  During the interviews for his report that he would file that evening, he asked through his translator how things were.  ‘Not very good’ several of the inhabitants grumped back, ‘we get three meals a day but the food is not very good!’ When you hear comments like this you know that the people are being well looked after.

The emerging story that I see is the people who have made it to camps are being well looked after.  But it is those who have not, cannot or do not wish to make the journey who are the people in real need.  In Sindh alone 1000’s of villages have been swept away with the floods with more being affected right now as I write. Most of the pooper homes are constructed of flimsy materials like coppiced branches or reeds which have been weaved and lashed together.  The floods arrived so quickly most fled with nothing.  The brave and the fortunate managed to throw as many of their possessions as they could onto their bed frames and head for higher ground.  Some even managed to save some of their animals but most lost everything.  When I say everything I mean everything save for the shirts on their backs.

What is quite amazing it the strength of the family and community bond here.  Where people have fled with nothing others have helped them build make shift reed and wooden shelters all along the tops of the causeways.  Some tents have made it to these areas but mostly it is the persistence and drive for survival of the village peoples that means they now have some shelter. It is however the children with their immortal spirits that appear to give hope to all those around them.

There is so much I want to write about but the trip is now starting to sap my energy a little.  I will write more later.  My next story will be about 2 contrasting villages that we visited and the joy we were able to bring to these destitute and almost forgotten people.