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The inventor of this solar-powered water filtration system wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize

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Watly

Marco Attisani wants his company to be the first to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It's a lofty goal for a 10-person startup, but Attisani is sure that the solar-powered water filtration systems they're producing will earn a spot on the shortlist.

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The filtration machines manufactured by Attisani's Italian company, Watly, are covered in photovoltaic panels that feed electricity into internal batteries. This allows the systems to be installed in the world's most remote locations, free of the need to connect to a power grid. The 40-foot-long, 15-ton units also serve as Wi-Fi hubs and charging stations. 

Each machine can process 5,000 liters of drinking water each day and provide Wi-Fi access within a half-mile radius, according to CNN . The team claims the units will last roughly 10 years before they require maintenance. 

Watly tested two units in its production facility in Talmassons, Italy in 2013 and 2014 before piloting a unit in rural Ghana in 2015. The company has also started an Indiegogo campaign to help fund an expansion into Sudan and Nigeria. 

In infrastructure-poor parts of the African continent, particularly those that lack electricity and reliable sources of clean water, Attisani says this could be a game-changer. 

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"We are providing benefits to people that in an American or European perspective, seem ridiculous because we are accustomed to consuming 200 liters a day for showering, using the toilet, and so on," Attisani says, "But it's going to make a huge impact on people who don't have anything."

According to the United Nations, 39% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa, especially those in rural communities, don't have access to clean water. In many cases that's due to a lack of infrastructure — water treatment plants require electricity and are often too large an investment to make in sparsely populated areas. 

Attisani says that installing a few Watlys in a place that lacks clean water could alleviate those problems. The company plans to sell the individual units at approximately $400,000 apiece, to governments, corporations or regional investors.

Marianne Boust, an energy storage analyst at market research firm IHS, says that although Watly's technology is promising, the price tag could hinder the expansion Attisani is hoping to achieve. 

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"In these countries, governments don't really have money and they're not necessarily willing to spend the money on these kinds of systems," she says. "It's definitely scalable. I just think they need to think about their route to market."

But Attisani's vision goes beyond water purification: If people can exert less time and energy procuring water, he says, that will lay the groundwork for new economic opportunities. Individuals could secure jobs, start businesses or assist in the manufacturing or assembly of more Watly units as the company grows. He even likens the product's potential for economic development and job creation to the U.S. auto boom at the turn of the 20th century.

"Money is not the mission of this company, money will be a consequence. The real mission is to make a huge impact. And most likely, we're looking at the Nobel Prize for peace or for economics," Attisani says.

It's a grand plan considering that there are only a few functional Watlys currently on the ground and the company has no specified timeline for expansion. But Watly has already received over $2 million in funding from four startup competitions, including the European Commission's Horizon 2020.

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"It is too easy to build oil wells and destroy the planet by polluting it — that's such a human thing," Attisani says. "But it's a divine, above-human thing to create technology that will repair what we have destroyed."

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