After graduating from the University of Washington, Eric Stowe, founder and director of Splash, worked with a local company that assisted in international adoptions. From 2003 to 2007, he spent time in China, Nepal, India, Vietnam, and Thailand helping families unite with their children. By day, he worked in orphanages to help determine short-term gains and long-term impacts on children’s health. Organizations like the one he worked at handed out things like rice, milk, and diapers -- items that weren’t going to turn the needle on kids' health. At night, he would return to the hotels where the families were staying, and began to notice a major gap. Despite their proximity to each other, hotels had potable water while the orphanages often did not. Stowe soon realized that clean water was tied directly to health and could only be leveraged by those who had funds.

In this podcast, Stowe talks with Paul Shoemaker about creating safe water projects in resource-poor cities to help advance health outcomes.