「AirComb」

Executive SummaryH​2​G (#7, HG18), Hiroo Gakuen High SchoolH​
G is a company that aims to resolve the issue of neonatal deaths and the death of children under five. Currently, many developing countries2​
are facing an issue of having a high death rate of neonates and children under five. For example, the Sub-Saharan African area has a very highneonatal death rate of 34 deaths per 1,000 live births. This issue is mainly caused by two reasons; diseases like pneumonia, and preterm births.
However, these causes can be easily prevented with the use of clean water. It is said that 35~50% of Diarrhea disease and 23% of acuterespiratory infection can be prevented by the children and mothers washing hands. Clean water can also be used to increase the efficiency ingrowing and harvesting crops in farms. This will increase the amount and variety of crops people have access to, which can help provide thenecessary nutrition to people. This will also contribute to solve the issue of preterm births, as malnutrition of mothers is the main cause ofpreterm birth. Therefore, AirComb believes that providing clean water to countries that do not have enough clean water can decrease the death
rate of neonates and children under five. To provide clean water, we will create and operate stations that will be placed in villages aroundnumerous developing countries. These stations will create clean water with the use of wet desiccation, which is a process of creating cleanwater from the moisture in the air. We will sell these stations to governments of countries that are in need of clean water. On top of that, we will
help to educate people on how to sanitize and clean their hands, by creating posters that shows how to effectively wash their hands. Theseposters will be hung at each stations. In our first year, we will start off with Uganda and Ethiopia. Through marketing and further investment, wewill expand our target area.

1. Mission & Goals

H​
G aims to decrease the death rate of neonates and children under five by providing a system that creates clean water to those in need.
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Providing a system to create clean water can help decrease diseases and increase the amount and variety of crops available, which can help
meet the needs of nutrition. To raise profits for our service we will be gathering funds from investors who are interested in our service, and also
by selling our services to countries that are interested in purchasing our service to provide clean water for its citizens. Our main goals are asfollows.
1. Raise funds for our business plan from investors, and return initial funds to investors by the 4th year.
2. Sell our product to nations for $600 each. By selling at this value, H​2​G will be able to earn $87 of profit per unit sold.
3. Market our product to other developing nations--preferably to nations close to Uganda and Ethiopia to decrease the cost oftransportation of material--and expand our service area.
4. Decrease the neonatal death rate of all countries to 12 deaths per 1,000, and the death rate of children under the age of five to 25 per1,000.

2. Details on ServiceH​
G’s service, the AirComb, is a service that provide users with clean, drinkable water by creating water
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from the humidity in the air. This is possible through a process called wet desiccation, which starts withhumid air flowing into our station. Inside our station, brine, a type of dry salt, extracts the humidity fromthe air, creating water that mixes with brine. The mixture then gets heated up which will separate thewater from the brine, which creates clean water that can be extracted from the faucets attached to thestation. The brine is sent back to the top of the station to be used again. From this process, we are able
to provide clean, drinkable water from the air. When the government purchases this station, H​2​G’sworkers will be sent to the specified location, who will construct and set up the station. Our service also
includes maintenance by cleaning it, supplying it with brine, and repairing it when broken. On top of this, our service will also hang posters that
accurately show users of the station how to wash their hands. There will be about 3 posters for each station, and these posters will havedrawings on them so that it is easy for children and illegible people. To summarize, our service includes the following.
1. Construction of the stations that creates clean water.
2. Maintenance of these stations.
3. Creating and distributing posters that educate station users on how to wash their hands properly.

3. Market/Industry Analysis

AirComb is marketed towards government because of its magnificent potential to improve agriculture and mortality rate by improving the healthof their citizens, especially pregnant mothers and children under five. In Uganda and Ethiopia, 60% of the population is engaged in agriculture
and 83.9% of exports depend on agriculture, respectively. However, 43% of the population lack access to clean water in Ethiopia. In Uganda, it
is a striking 61%. Because water plays a critical role in the quality of the crops harvested, poor water quality is leading to food pollution.
Vegetable and fruits are a necessary nutrition for pregnant mothers and children under five. By improving the quality of water, the quality ofthese foods will be made drastically better, which will enhance their health. There are more benefits for mothers and children. More than 35%of the deaths for children under five in Uganda and Ethiopia is caused by diarrhea and pneumonia. A major cause of this is due to the poor levelof water sanitation. It is said that washing hands appropriately can decrease diarrhea by 35-50% and pneumonia by 23%. Since washing handscan drastically reduce these deaths, improved quality and number of the workforce can be expected by introducing AirComb, which will lead tofurther economic and industrial blooming in the developing countries.

4. Marketing & Strategy

To market our product to the two target nations, Uganda and Ethiopia, H​2​G will first pitch our idea of creating clean water stations to thegovernments of these two nations. To convince these governments to purchase our products, we may have to first set up a station for free, andshow how our service works, and why it is important for decreasing the death rate of neonates and children under five. By providing evidence of
our success there, we will convince and sell the government our service. Furthermore, for continuous marketing, we will make ourselves better
known via our own website and SNS, which is proved to be one of the most cost-effective advertisements around the world. By doing so, we willbe recognized by bodies as huge as the government. On top of these marketing methods, we will also provide other governments of developing
nations with proof of our success in previous sites H​2​G built stations in. This will lead to the expansion of our network, and by 2030, H​
G aims to2​
set up stations in all countries with high death rates of neonates and children under the age of five. Moreover, the poster we hung at the station
will also serve to let the people who use our product to recognize our presence. However, perhaps the most effective amongst our marketingstrategy will be the research conducted towards the people who used our product. By showing that the health of mothers and children under five
improved, we will be able to gain continued investment from government, as well as getting attention from other developing countries as well.

5. Management

To start up our business, we will need employees to operate the H​2​G company, as well as to construct and maintain the stations. For this, we will
employ the local communities and educate them on how to create and maintain the stations. However, to educate our employees, H​
G need to2​
fully understand how to construct and maintain the stations. For this, H​2​G will partner up with Calvin College, a leading researcher of waterdesiccation stations, and gain knowledge from them. H​2​G will also partner up with the Planet Water Foundation [PWF], a non-profit organizationthat is also aiming to distribute clean water to people in developing countries, and learn the know-how of distributing water to people in needfrom them. Also, we will partner up with the Africa Educational Trust, Children Of Ethiopia Education Fund [COEEF], and Asian educationalorganizations to educate people on how to sanitize their hands properly.

6. Finance-We expect the economy in both Uganda and Ethiopia to keep growing steadily,and have therefore assumed the growth in the amount of service sold throughout
the first three years
We assume that there will be no major change in federal grant funding ability
We assumed growth in the need for our service throughout both Uganda andEthiopia as well as in other countries where the service may be provided in thefuture
We assume that, while droughts may be beneficial to us as the demand for water
will increase, other major weather catastrophes could negatively affect ourbusiness, and we hope that they do not happen at all
We expect to be able to pay back the funding in less than four years

7. Conclusion

AirComb will bring an enormous change to Third World nations with its potential to createand distribute clean water effectively, which means that infections will be prevented, along with improving the unhygienic conditions of thosecountries. As a result, the passing down of infections from mother to child before and after birth can be avoided and a safe environment is given
to the newborn babies, preventing thousands of deaths of neonates and children under the age of five. On top of that, our business model isprofitable. Through various methods of marketing, we will sell our service to nations around the world, starting from Ethiopia and Uganda. By
selling these products to various third-world nations not just in Africa, we will be able to make profit in less than four years, meaning that wewill be able to return the initial funds from investors in just four years.
AirComb believes that we will be able to play a crucial role in decreasing the death rate of neonates and children under the age of five, byproviding a system that creates a clean, safe source of water. However, to make our business model a reality, the investment from investors isessential. However, because our project both benefits the world and is profitable, we believe that the investment from investors will bebeneficial for the investor. Our project is for the future of the next generation, and so that the people after us can have a better life than in thepast.
Citations
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engineering/2011-12-team5/wetdes.php
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs178/en/
https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/neonatal-mortality/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
http://www.who.int/pmnch/media/membernews/2011/ugandabackgroundpaper.pdf