Tetra: A climate-friendly solution to ensure safe drinking water

Dipa Kabiraj is a female tea stall owner from Batbunia, Dacope Upazila, the southern part of Khulna district. She needs about four to five pitchers of water every day for her shop and household work. But there's a severe shortage of safe water in this area.

"Sometimes we fetch pond water, sometimes harvest rainwater, and at other times we bring water from distant sources. It costs us both time and money," she said.

However, Dipa is not alone. According to the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report-2022, around 40% of Bangladesh's population, or nearly 70 million people, lack access to safe water.

And when it comes to the coastal areas, the key challenge is salinity. The escalating salinity crisis in those regions has impacted the lives of over 43 million people.

It not only impacts health but also has far-reaching indirect societal implications. Girls standing in long lines for fresh water are vulnerable to harassment, while prolonged exposure to saline water causes skin diseases, accelerating issues like child marriage. Pregnant women face complications from consuming saline water, exacerbating maternal health risks.

Four former BUET students— Sabrina Rashid Sheonty, Asif Hossain Tamim, Sabbir Rudro, and Mubasshir Tahmid, came together to address this challenge in 2018. Their brainchild 'Tetra' is now a climate-tech startup on a dedicated mission to provide safe water access for all.

Fast forward to 2024, the innovation has received recognition. This year, Tetra has been awarded the Silver Medal in the Governance, Institutions, and Social Enterprise category at the International Water Association (IWA)'s prestigious Project Innovation Awards. They secured 2nd place competing against 108 projects from 34 countries. 

Tetra sells water at a very affordable price at 50 paisa per litre. They share a commission with their micro-entrepreneurs.

Sabrina Rashid Sheonty, the Director of Tetra, was awarded the Young Leadership Award for the first time from Bangladesh.

How Tetra works

The big idea is desalinating water using solar power. 

Tetra has developed two types of products: one for households and another for communities. The household system is entirely powered by solar energy, while the community system uses a combination of solar power and electricity.

For communities, they have installed four water plants so far. They work in a solar-powered reverse osmosis process.

The structure has two rooms while one is for technical operations and the other is a collection point, like a booth. The plants work as hubs as people stand in queues, punch their cards and collect safe water.

The uniqueness lies not only in its desalination process, but also in its holistic and sustainable approach.

They involve people from the community, especially women as their business partners. They call them micro-entrepreneurs, who monitor local operations and management such as recharging clients' ATM cards with POS machines etc. This approach makes their business model efficient.

Tetra sells water at a very affordable price at 50 paisa per litre. They share a commission with their micro-entrepreneurs.

"Being involved in this work has provided me with some extra income, but I'm most happy to be a part of this initiative. In the past, people didn't have access to good water. With this water booth, the people in our village have benefited greatly," Kailash Kabiraj, a micro-entrepreneur of Tetra, told The Business Standard.

Asif Hossain Tamim claimed that Tetra's all-encompassing strategy, blending innovative technology with community engagement, had never been attempted by any other enterprise before.

Tetra conducted intensive research and came up with an improved water desalination filter. It's capable of producing over 3000 to 4000 litres of water per day, designed specifically for the lower-income communities in the region.

Tetra is yet to be profitable but he believes that they are on the right track. Currently, the company is running on development and climate funds. 

The beginning

Tetra's journey initially started from the Hult Prize competition on BUET campus, where they ended up as the winner. In the Regional Summit in Kuala Lumpur, they finished as a finalist. Later they became champions at the UNDP Safe Water Challenge in 2019.

"Receiving the initial grant from UNDP was a significant step for us. It helped us implement the project," said Sheonty.

With the fund, they made a primary prototype and set up 15 devices in low-income households in the coastal regions of Satkhira. This small experiment offered valuable insights into the ideal market fit for the product, as well as the skills and connections the co-founders would need to transform the idea into a successful startup.

In 2021, with the improved idea, knowledge, and skill set, Tetra applied to two incubators and secured an equity-free grant from 'Aqua for All' and 'Young Water Solutions'.

With the grant, Tetra ran an extensive door-to-door campaign across the districts of Khulna, Satkhira, and Bagerhat, gathering data from over 1,000 households. At the same time, they conducted intensive research and development, and came up with an improved water desalination filter. It's capable of producing over 3000 to 4000 litres of water per day, designed specifically for the lower-income communities in the region.

They completed the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) phase by testing their innovation in multiple regions across the coastal belt and found it to be a perfect market fit product.

Sabrina Rashid Sheonty, the Director of Tetra, was awarded the Young Leadership Award for the first time from Bangladesh.

From that point, Tetra started commercially manufacturing their water desalination filters and supporting lower-income households in the hard-to-reach villages along the coastal belt of Bangladesh with access to safe drinking water through the micro-entrepreneur-based business model.

What's next for Tetra?

In the next two years, Tetra aims to set up 50 plants in the Khulna, Jashore, Bagerhat, and Satkhira regions.

In the long run, they aim to ensure access to safe water for 1 million people of Bangladesh by 2030.

"However, our vision is not only making water accessible but affordable too. We have plans to tap into the Chittagong Hill Tracts and flood-prone areas where safe water is a big crisis," said Tamim.

Sheonty mentioned that they have plans to break the supply chain using their own trucks for water distributions in the last mile.

"We're also developing an app-based system called a 'water wallet'. Using our database, the app will be able to show locations of the plants. It will be seamlessly integrated into people's daily lives," Sheonty said.

Beyond the border, Tetra has replicated its model in the Ukraine refugee camps and now working in Namibia. They are also focusing on global partnerships. For instance, they have recently started collaborating with the Centre for Global Engineering at the University of Toronto.

"We want to be a global water solution hub. That's our global mission. We want to address all sorts of water problems worldwide with our innovation, technology, and knowledge," Sheonty concluded.