Called the Solar Water Disinfecting Tarpaulin, it’s quite an incredible invention and a potentially important one, too, considering that the lack of access to clean water is a major health problem for more than a billion people on our planet.

As one of the contest judges, architect Lance Hosey of William McDonough + Partners, said about Olsen’s project, “What’s brilliant…is that instead of making a better bucket, he reduced the challenge to its essence: how to get safe water.”

The Next Generation annual contest focuses on finding sustainable solutions that address today’s energy or environmental challenges, a cause that parallels Herman Miller’s environmental advocacy.

What do the winners get? A prize of $10,000, which they can put toward the development of their idea. What a great way to reward (and fund) people to stretch their minds, use their imaginations, and create innovative solutions for the real environmental problems we’re facing around the world. Good idea, no? Next year at this time you could be one of them.