Humanitarian Supplies Challenge prize winners

  • Media release

Today I announce the winners of the Humanitarian Supplies Challenge, an initiative of the Australian Government's innovationXchange designed to identify new and innovative humanitarian relief supplies.

The challenge sought solutions to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian aid in delivering clean water, off grid energy supply and safe and temporary shelter.

The $1 million challenge received 77 applications from 12 countries and 13 innovative products have been selected to assist in humanitarian crises. Six of these products will be supplied by Australian companies.

The Humanitarian Supplies Challenge winning products will improve the lives of people in our region affected by natural disaster and other humanitarian crisis.

The six Australian winners and their products are:

  • SpaTap, an efficient water dispensing mechanism to assist in the supply of clean water;
  • Aqua Synergy Solutions, who produceSquirt, a compact water filtration device;
  • Greenco, who produce flatpack tanks which store large volumes of water and are easy to transport and assemble;
  • Mission Sports, who produce inflatable, low cost and rechargeable solar lights;
  • Sheltereach, an innovative tarpaulin house that can be easily assembled and used with locally available materials to create durable temporary shelter; and
  • Technical Outdoors, who produce modular tents that can be used as a school, medical centre or community space.

The other winners of the challenge are Aquasure SAS, Safe Water Trust, LuminAID Lab, Freeplay Energy, India Impex and Covertex.

The new products will be tested when the Australian Government responds to crises in our region and those that prove effective will be added to our humanitarian supplies stores. The products showcase how we are working to find more effective ways to save lives, alleviate suffering, and assist disaster-affected communities to return to their normal lives following a disaster.

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