Toilet Startup Wins MIT Entrepreneurship Challenge

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Toilet Co. Wins MIT Competition

Sangery Toilet Waste Can Be Converted To Energy, Fertilizer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A startup company creating affordable and hygienic toilets to help fight disease in developing countries has won the $100,000 first prize in the 2011 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

Sanergy has developed toilets that can be placed in slums without sewage infrastructure, and the resulting waste can be converted into energy and organic fertilizer.

Sanergy’s founders, MIT engineering students and MIT Sloan School MBA candidates, say 2.6 billion people worldwide lack access to basic sanitation. The resulting disease kills 1.6 million children per year and costs developing countries as much as 6.4 percent of GDP in lost productivity.

Team member Ani Vallabhaneni says at each step of the process, Sanergy sanitation systems create jobs, opportunity and profit while addressing social and economic needs.

Sanergy is already working in Kenya.

Read more: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/27906059/detail.html#ixzz1MYZZX9Dj