A pair of large, worn-out hands rolls a barrel across a frame. A hand truck and other construction items are visible in the background. The silhouette of a man travels across the screen as these words appear: 3,900 children die every day from water-borne illnesses.

It’s a representation of Chris Grant, whose hands and silhouette star in the promotional video posted to his company’s Dell Social Innovation Challenge page. WaterPort, the company, is one of 200 international semi-finalists chosen from more than 1,700 business plans.

Grant, a senior finance and real estate dual major, is also the CEO of WaterPort. It started out as a winning business plan for EEE 457: ‘Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management,’ the capstone class required for all business students.

The course instructor, Ken Walsleben, watched Grant become the leader of the group while still welcoming his teammates’ insight.

‘Many people go through their whole lives and never develop leadership skills that seem to come easily to Chris,’ Walsleben said.

Though a timetable has not been set, WaterPort is hoping to begin manufacturing the RainPort, a solar-powered water-harvesting and filtration device that converts rain into drinkable water for Third World populations. The vision is 120 gallons of purified drinking water for every inch of rain that falls.

Grant and his capstone teammates -Victoria Di Napoli, Hunt Lau and William Craine – are using the $22,000 they have received in prizes so far to create a working prototype at the Center of Excellence. The team is working on obtaining more funding through competitions such as the Dell challenge to manufacture the RainPort.

‘Before we get to that phase we would still need to receive a lot more investment either from an angel investor or from a loan,’ he said.

Since jumping into the construction industry at age 13 by helping out his father at work, Grant has visited New Orleans twice to help build houses.He refers to himself as a ‘social entrepreneur’ rather than a businessman or a humanitarian. Grant said the innovation of rainwater harvesting isn’t being utilized as much as it could be in construction domestically, let alone in the most water-stressed nations in the world, where it is needed most.

He explained that if he were to run WaterPort as a nonprofit, he would have to fundraise in every city he set up in. As a for-profit, he can hire locals and buy raw materials for the system from African manufacturers to stimulate the economy there.

Because he was chosen for the Kauffman Entrepreneurship Engagement Fellowship, Grant will return for his master’s degree in entrepreneurship next year while he continues to develop WaterPort. He’ll essentially work full-time out of free office space in the Student Sandbox at Syracuse’s Technology Garden.

‘Last year at this time, this is the last thing that I expected to be doing, coming back and getting my master’s,’ said Grant, expressing gratitude toward Martin J. Whitman School of Management for encouraging students to come back and further their business ideas.

By the time class starts in August, Grant hopes to have set up a contract to start harvesting water in some of the most water-deprived suburbs of Africa, right outside Mozambique.

Walsleben pushed the team early on to do something different from the book buying or selling website commonly conceptualized in the class. Walsleben told the group that their idea could change the world and said he wouldn’t be surprised to see WaterPort operating globally within the next few years.

For his success so far, Grant credits Walsleben’s mentorship as well as a partnership with start-up consultant Jose Cossa, who specializes in integrating international companies into the dynamics of Africa. Cossa, whose company is located in Mozambique, has seen firsthand the hardships of communities without clean water.

Grant and his teammates were disappointed to be cut after the first round of the Panasci Business Plan competition after a judge suggested they start out in South America, where there is at least double the rainfall.

‘We’re following the need, not the rain,’ Grant said. ‘That’s what it’s about.’

The group still came away with the Fetner Prize in Sustainable Enterprise and the Holtz Prize in Global Enterprise, attached to $5,000 each, recognizing WaterPort for its sustainability and international initiatives. In addition, Grant was presented with the Undergraduate Excellence Award, given ‘for being a true agent of change and innovation.’

‘Like any good entrepreneur, if Chris is smart enough to surround himself with talented and passionate individuals, the future for Chris and WaterPort is limitless,’ Walsleben said. ‘It really is.’

sfanelli@syr.edu

Published on April 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm