“This is the biggest innovation in solving the world’s water crisis in decades,” said John Renouard, the drill’s inventor and the executive director of the nonprofit WHOlives. “We have the solution for getting clean water to rural communities.”

The Village Drill takes less than two hours to set up in the field. Watch this 50-second time-lapse video of operations director Mike Anderson and the WHOlives team putting together the revolutionary drill.

George Wissing and Oliver Adams with the group Friends of Liberia purchased their first Village Drill in 2021 and reached that 100-well mark in March 2023.

Our technology won this international contest for water solutions held by the Korea Water Forum in conjunction with Korea International Water Week (KIWW).

Communities in most dire need of a dependable, nearby well water are currently reliant on contaminated surface water. Humans have been digging wells for thousands of years, but there’s a better way.

In just one year, the BYU engineers successfully created, manufactured, and tested the drill.  The Village Drill continues to live up to its name, providing remote villages with access to multiple wells with the purchase of a single drill.