Change:WATER Labs CEO Diana Yousef to spotlight
innovative sanitation solution during November 7th presentation
October 30, 2025 (Cape Cod, MA) – With wastewater becoming a complex and costly problem in our region, the Cape Cod Technology Council will welcome Dr. Diana Yousef, PhD, MBA, a climatech innovator, to speak at its November First Friday about the innovative solution that her company, change:WATER Labs, has created to address the global sanitation crisis.
“Around the world, there is going to be a huge need for a non-sewered sanitation solution–with mega cities developing in the next few years, where rapid growth in urban areas will far outpace infrastructure expansion, and we will face increasing water scarcity,” Dr. Yousef said. “So, our team has developed a waste-evaporating toilet solution for urban and coastal areas that uses no water and needs no hookup to sewer plumbing. Using a novel evaporative membrane technology, our system quickly eliminates onsite waste—so not only does it not use or pollute any water, it actually converts the majority of collected sewage waste back into pure, molecular water. It keeps all collected waste fully contained, allowing zero toxic discharge.”
Dr. Yousef’s talk will focus on her company’s award-winning innovation, the iThrone, a waterless, sewerless toilet that rapidly shrinks human waste by up to 95% in just one day. Using a proprietary breathable membrane, the system evaporates the liquid water content of waste without using any heat. It transforms the waste into pure water vapor, resulting in a clean, odorless, and compact solution that protects communities, safeguards oceans, and cuts greenhouse gas emissions without requiring water or infrastructure.
To register for the Tech Council’s First Friday on November 7th, 7:30-9 am, at Cape Cod Community College, visit https://cctechcouncil.org/. Admission includes networking beforehand as well as breakfast.
“This talk is timely, especially for anyone who is interested at all in wastewater which is perhaps the most challenging issue facing every town on Cape Cod,” said Tech Council Executive Director Michael White. “Diana’s talk will look at an alternative approach to addressing this issue that minimizes the impact on the environment which is critical in a coastal region like ours.”
Dr. Yousef founded change:WATER Labs in 2015. Currently, the company operates out of Greentown Labs of Somerville, the largest clean tech incubator in the world.
The iThrone toilets were first deployed as public toilets in an urban area of Uganda. During the past two years, the company has been operating iThrones in residential bathrooms in a non-sewered community in Panama City, Panama.
Its first project in the United States will occur in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where the company will deploy roughly 100 portable toilets for transitional housing for the homeless. “They are building modular homes and needed a non-plumbed solution for the project,” Dr. Yousef said. “We don’t have a septic system solution fully ready yet, but the design of our Uganda pilot units could eventually be adapted to a septic solution which could be a useful solution to the nutrient discharge challenges in coastal communities.”
She is hopeful that her company’s technology will find its way to Cape Cod and the Islands, noting that the approach does not use or pollute any water which is significant when considering that more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives near coastal areas.
The iThrone also addresses global inequities as more than half of world’s population lives in locations where there is no sewage plumbing. This includes billions of people residing near water in communities that rely on septic solutions or straight dumping of human waste.
With 80% of human waste currently being discharged untreated into the environment, the result leads to the poisoning of people, our atmosphere, our oceans, and our planet.
“This one solution has the potential to impact 13 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” said Dr. Yousef of the technology behind the iThrone. “I can’t ignore wanting to contribute to something like that. I’m a scientist by training and I love that I was able to apply scientific principles to addressing a real-world problem and come up with a completely new answer to a very hard question.”
Dr. Yousef conceived of the technology while working with NASA on water-treatment options for the International Space Station.
She is a biochemist and environmental innovator who has worked at the intersection of science, technology, and sustainability for over two decades. Her work has been recognized by the United Nations, NASA, and the World Bank. She is a World Economic Forum Top Innovator, TEDx speaker, and was invited by the Turkish government to speak at the 2019 UN Climate Summit.
About Cape Cod Technology Council
Founded in 1994 and incorporated in 1996, the Cape Cod Technology Council, Inc. is a membership-based, events-oriented nonprofit that promotes technology and its understandings on Cape Cod, the Islands, and in Southeastern Massachusetts. The Council’s work includes supporting the direction of development of the technology infrastructure in the region to advance the growth, effectiveness, and competitiveness of member organizations; assist in the technology education for the advancement of its members as well as future generations through a variety of programs; and provide unique, meaningful, and topical presentations, discussions, forums, and events focused on technology. To learn more about the Technology Council, visit www.cctechcouncil.org.