Meet Yousef Odeh, the 23 year old social entrepreneur from Jordan who has set out to tackle the water shortage issue in Jordan, specifically targeting refugee camps. The first thing that strikes you about Yousef is his bubbly self,  sense of determination and a will of his own to be a change maker.

In 3 sentences only, who is Yousef Odeh?

I am a Mechanical Energy Engineer, theatre actor and public speaker.

What does your company/organization do?

Filtro Moya provides a solution to recycle grey water, this water from shower, water basins and laundry.

What is your role? How is a typical day being you?

I am the Operations Engineer and I also work with marketing and sales. As the Operational Engineer, I ensure that an installed unit functions as it should after installation, which is conducted by the sanitation engineer.

A typical day involves emailing potential partners these could be with the steel industry as well as company working in water and wastewater management.

We are currently looking into processes to provide drinkable water and we are trying to get in touch with companies that can accomplish this. 

Why did you choose this path?

Water management is the number one problem in Jordan. There are always conferences focused on the water situation in Jordan and there are all these figures and numbers but nobody is coming up with a practical solution so why shouldn’t I start?

And why in refugee camps?

People in Jordan can’t afford to buy water, the situation is so bad people take out loans to buy water. Refugees obviously cannot afford this, there are days when they do not have a drop of water. This is not a condition that people should live in.

What’s your next step? What’s your dream/vision?

Right now my focus for filtro Moya is to scale up and get into the market. I would like to see a time when there will be no water shortages in Jordan because of Filtro Moya that will making the recycling process more affordable to people and also result into increasing the awareness of using recycled water which is an issue.

My personal vision is to have more Yousef Odeh’s in the SE Program. I have made a personal decision to train five people back home. These people are working with social impact and I would like to spread the knowledge I have received from the program rather than keeping it to myself.

What impacts have you seen so far?

During the pilot study, we got so many volunteers who wanted to test the product in their household this is evidence of the interest in the product. Therefore we are sure that the product will take off once we have enough money to scale up.

Why are you participating in the SE Outreach Accelerator? What were/are your expectations? What are your needs? How has your experience been so far?

I participate in the Outreach- Accelerator to improve my venture and learn from the program and project.

My expectations were to be able to network and connect with people. I can say the connections are already happening and continuously progressing. I am also in the initial stage of developing a partnership and looking forward to finalizing it.

My experience has been great and amazing (Laughing). Everyday I have learnt something either from colleagues, from you and from people I have met.

Any good tips you want to share with the outer world?

Start. If you sit there lamenting on the problems we have, that is not enough. Just start.