It is simply amazing that 20 years ago, Monroe founded the AguaClara program at Cornell University, building off of ideas initiated through a conversation decades beforehand with Jacobo, founder of Agua Para el Pueblo, a local NGO in Honduras. They discussed how communities throughout Honduras were being affected by the lack of safe drinking water. Over the years, the AguaClara program expanded to become a large community of experts in engineering and water who have the dedication, ingenuity, and the shared values of helping people. This collaboration led to the invention of a series of innovative designs, processes, and technologies that has improved over 100,000 lives by providing access to safe water on tap.
One of the AguaClara program’s most important assets are the students who have dedicated themselves through their studies at Cornell University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Ohio State University to protecting the universal right to safe water. The students who enroll in the AguaClara program understand how unique of an opportunity it is to be part of this real-world experiment. It is an experiment that continuously drives new ideas and questions old ones to advance technologies and create new solutions.
The AguaClara educational programs have inspired hundreds of students each year to pursue careers specialized in the water sector. AguaClara Reach (ACR) was founded as an organization to support the implementation of AguaClara’s technologies world-wide. It is no surprise that the majority of ACR’s board are program alumni as well as the many volunteers who all have made such an incredible impact on the organization. Each year, the student researchers enable ACR to expand its ability to tackle more problems in drinking water and that has positioned the organization to have an ever-increasing global impact. Beginning in Honduras, where our technologies have been improved upon each year and now with the launch of our new prefabricated plant design and the community pilots in Puerto Rico, ACR has built a foundation of water treatment solutions that solve for turbidity in surface water in many regions of the world. AguaClara Reach’s next journey is to develop an infrastructure to support those opportunities.
ACR has been so fortunate to have such dedicated volunteers without whom, ACR would be unable to function. AguaClara’s technology roadmap consists of plant designs, the design engine and also includes the Automated Coagulant Dose Control (ACDC), which can significantly reduce the reliance on hands-on operators. There is so much opportunity to advance the water treatment process and our impact. To support that, AguaClara Reach needs to expand its technical capabilities with additional staff and we will create new roles dedicated to market research, development and operations. To do this, we need help from you.
Over the last 6 months, ACR has been spinning at full speed and we have so many positive announcements that we will be making. We’ll be publishing more frequent updates that will include profiles of those in our community, student projects, on-location interviews, and much more content for you to gain a better view into our mission. One of our 2026 goals is to double the number of our supporters so please share our notes with your friends!
In celebrating 20 years of AguaClara, we would like to take this moment to thank all the student researchers, program alumni, our supporters, partners, volunteers, and staff for the incredible work and contribution everyone has made to the mission of providing global access to safe drinking water.
With love,
AguaClara Reach
P.S. We were in Puerto Rico for the installation of the PF250! More to come on that adventure but here is a peek:
