The London-based sanitation non-profit Gather will be transferring certain assets and goodwill to Athena Infonomics, the Chennai-headquartered global development solutions group to enable the continuation of Gather's work.
Throughout Gather's lifetime, collaboration had been a key theme of their work, especially within the WASH sector, and this agreement is a prime example of its commitment to collaboration. "I am delighted that Gather's work will continue as part of Athena Infonomics' broader mission," says Gather co-founder John Peter Archer. "When we launched Gather, one of our core values was to collaborate with like-minded organisations so that we could leverage maximum impact."
Innovation and the commitment to building digital public goods and data systems to improve civic services is a common thread that pulled Gather and Athena Infonomics together in recent months. Athena Infonomics has been leading several innovative initiatives to strengthen public service systems in WASH—including thinking about creative ways to build healthy cultures and systems for routine data generation and use to advance equitable service planning and enhanced accountability on WASH outcomes. Gather has been investing in the development of its geospatial capabilities through its Sanitation Data Platform, with a strong footprint in Madagascar. The fusion of these two innovative organisations, and Athena Infonomics' commitment to continue this work in the future, will serve to enhance the great work that they've been doing as individual entities.
This agreement will enable Athena Infonomics to use and combine its expertise with Gather's and channel resources to scale innovative, fit-for-purpose approaches that promote effective data use to advance resilient, sustainable, safe, and equitable civic services across geographies. This is echoed by Athena Infonomics co-founder, Deepa Karthykeyan: "At Athena, we look forward to using our entrepreneurial energies to build on and scale the incredible work Gather has done in developing and building data commons in the global sanitation sector."
