Newsletter #3 – February 2021
Hello from the LeapFrog Team,
And what a team it is! Before I mention a few recent developments, I want to take a moment to celebrate this team and the way we design together. Working collectively, we use principles of codesign and collaboration in our work. Our Medium publication is a place where our team can share expertise outside the virtual office. It helps us break down silos, and helps you dive deeper into the "why" and the "how" of our company. This month, our project manager Dayna Hansberger wrote about Human-Centered Design, which you can check out here.
In other exciting news, we have developments in funding, R&D and manufacturing to share.
Big thanks to Business Oregon for awarding us with a $50,000 SBIR Matching Grant. We will be using the funds from this grant to support intellectual property protections for our technology and to field-test our newest manufactured treatment system. We're currently talking with host sites interested in field testing this coming summer.
We are making steady progress in our R&D. We have been using a water quality testing standard called NSF-350. It's a certification for greywater reuse technology. I'll spare you the technical details but I'm happy to say we are meeting their water quality standards. Looks like we will indeed have a product ready for field testing in a few short months, but we still have work to do bringing modular, scalable ecological water treatment to the households of the near future.
As we head toward manufacturing, it's great to be expanding our R&D efforts, including new collaborators and plans to work with onsite wastewater treatment experts, Orenco, for manufacturing components of our latest series of products for field testing.
Again, I feel so fortunate to work with such inspiring people, making progress toward providing ecological water treatment systems for onsite reuse at home.
- Adam DeHeer
Design for Social Impact: What is Human-Centered Design?
In our most recent newsletter, Adam shared the story behind the name LeapFrog Design. The concept of “leapfrogging” emphasizes radical innovations to skip over inferior or inefficient solutions. This HCD primer shares the core tenets of the approach and how it can be used in practice to create long-lasting and desirable solutions to better fit your target audience and market. Read on Medium
LeapFrog Design received $50,000 in Business Oregon matching grants to augment the previously awarded federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program grant. These funds will support field testing for our household water reuse system. Read the press release (listed as Sanitary Green, Inc.)
LeapFrog is making great strides in preparing our plant-based, modular system for field testing. Our superstar technician Markus is hard at work in the greenhouse testing the system's effectiveness for household water treatment and reuse!
We continue to strengthen partnerships with scientists, manufacturers, and other experts to help finalize the next iteration of our system. Stay tuned for more details on these exciting partnerships with Banks Brewing Technology, Orenco Systems, and others!
