If Nerdfighters come together and raise $100,000 for Ethiopia, Bill Gates will match it.

In July, I joined Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation on a trip to Ethiopia. I visited a hospital in Addis Ababa and various health outposts in rural Ethiopia, speaking to Ethiopian health workers about their day-to-day experiences and the fantastic progress of the country’s more recent investments in sustainable healthcare.

While Ethiopia’s under-5 mortality rate has dropped, the need for safe water and sanitation access persists; the health centers I visited with the Gates Foundation often did not have running water, and the people I spoke to almost always cited clean water as among their biggest needs. With a population of 96 million, 76 million Ethiopians have no sanitation services and 49 million do not have access to safe water.

To help change this, I invite you to support his fundraiser for Water.org. Co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org has been developing sustainable water solutions for more than 20 years. Through this fundraiser I hope to establish safe water access for 8,000 people in Ethiopia.

Ethiopian health workers are making incredible progress in healthcare, especially when it comes to women's health and decreasing the infant mortality rate, but improving every Ethiopian's access to safe water is critical for this work to continue. Thank you to everyone who has been able to donate and DFTBA.

Read more about John's trip here.