The little lamp that could: This portable lamp is powered by seawater

WaterLight is a winner of Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation by Design Awards for harnessing one of Earth’s most abundant resources: the sea.

The sheer fact that you’re reading this sentence means you have access to some form of technology, which you will likely have to charge tonight or tomorrow. Electricity may have become a commodity for many of us, but in some parts of the world, it remains a luxury.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 840 million people in the world lived with no access to electricity in 2016. And while notable progress has been made in recent years, (just six years prior, that number was 1.2 billion) well over half a million people will still be left without access to electricity in 2030.

This is where WaterLight comes in. Winner of the Latin America category in Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation by Design Awards, WaterLight’s mission is simple: turn ocean water into electricity.

Designed by Wunderman Thompson Colombia, a creative agency that partnered with Colombian renewable energy startup E-Dina, WaterLight is a handheld device that can be powered with nothing but ocean water. It was first tested in one of the poorest, most remote communities in South America. Like other developing countries, electricity access in Colombia has been rising steadily still 1990, but remote communities like the indigenous Wayuu people in the Guajira Peninsula—a vast swath of sea and sand located at the northernmost tip of South America—continue to live with very limited access to electricity.

In April this year, 50 WaterLights were sent to the Wayuu tribe. Children used them to study after dark. Fishermen used them to fish at night to help attract more fish. WaterLight can also be used to slowly charge a cell phone or a radio.