Lieselotte Heederik,co-founder and Director,Nazava Water Filters

Lieselotte Heederik, co-founder and Director of Nazava Water Filters, is a Development Expert in Micro Finance and Women Empowerment.

Whilst living in Indonesia after the Tsunami in 2007, she experienced the difficulty in obtaining safe drinking water and realized the enormous need for affordable purification solutions. Hence, she co-founded Nazava Water Filters. Nazava’s mission is to empower women to purify their water to make it safe to drink, thereby increasing their savings and reducing Co2 emissions.

Nazava has operations in Indonesia, Kenya and Ethiopia and works with global distributors such as Unicef. It is one of the few products certified by WHO for bacterial removal. To date Nazava is a profitable business and has impacted over 600,000 people with access to safe, affordable drinking water. By 2030 Nazava aims to be the Nr 1 Leader in Household water filters for the Base of the Pyramid, impacting 10 million people.

Lieselotte has been recognized as Dutch Student of the Year 2004, Winner of the Tech Awards, Ashden Awards and Winner of the Bayer Social Innovation Award 2022. In 2022 Lieselotte was recognized on the Meaningful Business 100, which celebrates leaders combining profit and purpose to help achieve the SDGs. In 2023 Nazava was recognized as a Top Innovator in the Humanitarian Impact and Resilience Challenge organized by Uplink and the World Economic Forum