Aztech Labs is a small, highly-focused non-profit organization founded by two brothers, Zach and Aidan Hunter. Aztech Labs was founded when Zach was 12 years old and Aidan was 9. We’re focused on making clean water available to people in poor communities. We have two specific goals:
Our First Goal: Improving the Design of Low Cost Water Filters – To do this, we are:
- Funding design competitions for innovations in water filter technology. We are in discussions to fund a $10,000 award in cooperation with The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina.
- Encouraging, participating in, and publicizing research (particularly Design of Experiments-based research) to gather data about measurable benefits delivered by innovative filter designs. We’re inspired by the amazing work the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology has done in this area.
Our Second Goal: Making Water Filters Available to Communities in Need – To do this, we are:
- In discussions with the South Asia Pure Water Initiative Inc. to sponsor the installation of water filters in India.
- Developing a matching grant program to multiply the impact of donations we receive.
We bring three things to the table:
- Money – We got this by convincing our dad, the founder of a small software company, that spending our family’s money on making clean water available for poor people was more important than buying things like a new car, new TV, or Wii.
. - Contacts with impressive Design of Experiments expertise – These are the guys who can help water filter designers improve their designs. They are experts in how to learn as much as possible from building as few prototypes as possible. We’re optimistic we’ll be able to convince them to help because our grandfather was a prominent Design of Experiments expert who had a reputation for helping out in developing countries.
. - Youthful enthusiasm – We’re young and idealistic enough to think that two kids can make a big impact.
.