Major Enhancements to PWX

Peer Water Exchange Announces Major User Enhancements To Its Platform: Innovative Mapping and Searching Features Increase Value To Members and Visitors, Driving Increased Network Usage.

Bangalore, India
December 6, 2008

Peer Water Exchange announced several important enhancements designed to add value to members and the general public while heightening the network’s impact in creating and enforcing collaboration and becoming a transparent and efficient manager of all stages of water projects, from funding to impact analysis. These enhancements include improved search, projecting search results on a map, map (footprint) of an organization, listings of partners, applications, and project, and innovatively showing collaboration and global connections.

PWX is the only global online network devoted to connecting all organizations and their work in the water sector to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration on the selection, funding, management and monitoring of water and sanitation projects. Rajesh Shah, the creator of PWX, continually strives to enhance the network’s capabilities and ease to increase usage, knowledge sharing and, ultimately, improvement in water project results. “PWX brings interested water organizations, big and small, together from around the world to discuss their approaches to water and sanitation issues and continually strive to understand and support each other’s capabilities. The peer review and decision-making process continuously builds up the strength and knowledge of the network itself. In addition, new approaches receive feedback during the testing process, not just at the end through reports. These new enhancements are a direct result of member feedback and already have encouraged increased network usage and inquiries from non-PWX members. Our goal is to make all information on PWX completely accessible and useful for anyone in the world interested in fighting the safe drinking water crisis with us.”

A brief description of each enhancement follows. Water organizations and the general public are encouraged to check out these enhancements for themselves on PWX.

1) Search and Map: Improved custom search capabilities, showing search results by organization, application, project, and report. Newly added is the ability to map the search results, e.g. search for “dugwell” to locate actual projects and partners involved in contributing to the knowledge base.

2) Organization Mapping: Creating a visual map of each organization, putting all their offices and projects in perspective. This feature is available when viewing any partner’s profile and is very useful to show the breadth and depth of an organization.

3) Partner/Project Listing: Interactive lists of all PWX partners, applications and projects are now available from the PWX Home Page for quick reference.

4) Network Connections: A visual mapping of all communication lines created through the peer review. This feature underlines the tremendous cross-border knowledge sharing and collaboration that occur only as a result of the social network and virtual community provided by PWX. Small organizations not only find themselves within a community but also are empowered to give their opinions and participate in the decision-making process. This feature can be seen by clicking on any application on the map.

Blue Planet Run, via the Peer Water Exchange and its 40 expert partners, has funded 214 sustainable water and sanitation projects in 18 countries, providing safe drinking water to well over 200,000 people in need. The Peer Water Exchange is open to all visitors who can learn about all the projects and partners, and also to find out about membership.