It’s an open-source sanitation project, and if that isn’t weird enough, they’ve got a Bollywood-parody promotional angle. Note the OLPC there. The world gets a little weirder every day. -Bruce Sterling, Wired.

Since we started talking about Akvo at World Water Week in Stockholm, in August 2007, nothing has garnered us as much positive feedback as the Akvo posters. Yes those.

When we were about to begin our side event, a minister from an African country walked in and she said: “That woman, who built herself a toilet. I want to meet her!” People would walk up to us and ask if we had any posters to spare and when were out, the ones posted in the toilets disappeared. Several times people would come up to me and point to the posters and burst out: “I love them!

Mark Charmer was in Amsterdam the other day with Peter van der Linde and met Vincent Wijers, the man behind the posters. Mark told me afterwards:

Vincent is like a vision filter. He questions, challenges, searches. The first 30 minutes is always hard – you argue with him, he claims you don’t have a clear sense of what you’re about. And then you spend an hour absolutely in tune. Then he goes away. And you see what happens. -Mark Charmer

We are extremely grateful to Vincent for lavishing us with his visions of Akvo. It wouldn’t have been the same without them.