Dear Colleagues:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is inviting innovators to send letters of inquiry for the following opportunity:

Reinvent The Toilet Challenge — RTTC (round 2)

We are calling for a new set of innovative ideas to support our effort to reinvent the toilet. Grants will be awarded to exceptionally highly-qualified research groups interested in contributing to major advances in human sanitation in the developing world. These R&D efforts will comprise a new phase of the Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet Challenge: fast-paced designing, prototyping and demonstrating-in-operation of entirely stand-alone, self-contained, eminently-practical sanitation modules which intake bodily wastes and swiftly dispose of them definitively — without any incoming water piping, outgoing sewer piping or electric or gas utility services. These modules must intake all outputs of the serviced population — ultimately at single-residence scales — with minimal module footprints and assured biosafety. Thus, chemical and mechanical engineering approaches are preferred.

Letters of inquiry are being accepted online until Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time. A full description of the topic and application instructions is available at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/reinvent-the-toilet-loi.

If you have questions regarding this grant opportunity, please email us at GDWSHInbox@gatesfoundation.org. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any organization, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for profit companies. We are looking forward to receiving innovative ideas from around the world and from all disciplines. If you have a great idea, please apply. If you know someone else who may have a great idea, please forward this message.

Thank you for your commitment to solving one the world's greatest health and development challenges.