Kumulus Technology: Making Water Out of Nothing | African Development Bank

One morning, while traveling with friends in the Tunisian desert, Iheb Triki witnessed a rare sight. When he awoke, he found their tents covered with dew.

“Drops everywhere, in large quantities! So the desert is full of water,” he said. He figured out how to capture the moisture in the air and convert it into safe drinking water in areas with little or no water.

In fact, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Sahara desert contains high humidity and the global atmosphere contains six times as much water as all the world’s rivers.

In less than two years after his discovery, Triki’s dream came true.

Iheb, a graduate of the prestigious École Polytechnique in France, and a classmate, Mohamed Ali Abid, founded a start-up in 2021. “he says.

A solar-powered system stirs air in the machine, which then passes through several filters that extract the moisture and convert it into drinking water. The Kumulus, which looks like an amphora, weighs 60 kilos, is easy to transport in a pick-up truck and easy to install. It produces 20-30 liters of fresh, drinkable, mineralized water every day. It can be connected to the electricity grid or to solar panels.

By using smart technology, Kumulus can help provide additional drinking water to North Africa while contributing to tackling climate change, particularly its impact on water scarcity.

The first Kumulus was installed in a primary school in Bayadha, a rural hamlet in the western tip of Tunisia where access to drinking water remains limited.

Not only has the dream come true, the Kumulus has won several awards and prizes. It was named the winner of the first Vivatech 2022 award for start-ups specialized in the water sector, and has also been selected as one of the fifteen most promising “GreenTech” start-ups in Africa.

In October 2022, Triki was invited to participate in the 8th edition of “BIG” (Bpifrance Inno Génération) in Paris, an annual event that is the largest gathering of entrepreneurs in Europe. “Entrepreneurship is like running a marathon,” Triki said. “You have to be strong and resilient to succeed. There were only a few of us who started the venture, with less than $20,000. We worked very hard to improve our product, and we had to convince the investors that our idea was a solution for the future.”

All efforts paid off: Kumulus raised $1 million and expanded to include more computer developers, mechanical engineers and operations managers. Triki plans to develop and file patents, develop fully autonomous equipment and further develop the technology to make it more accessible.

“My dream is that every family can have its own water source, a sustainable source, its own Kumulus. We’ll get there,” he says.

With the support of the African Development Bank, the Tunisian Ministry of Industry has drawn up the “Industry and Innovation 2035” strategy, which aims to create an environment conducive to the emergence of high-potential companies such as Kumulus.