One of the world’s most innovative new ideas looks a lot like a stack of Tupperware containers filled with dirt.

And technically, it is.

But it’s also a dirt-powered battery dreamed up by Harvard’s Erez Lieberman-Aiden. And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation thinks it just might be a game changer for the developing world.

The Seattle-based foundation announced the winners of its Grand Challenges Exploration grants Thursday, an attempt to spur creative –if not downright unusual — approaches to solving problems in poor countries.

There were 88 grants for $100,000 awarded. The Associated Press has more on the grantees, many of whom proposed solutions to sanitation problems in poverty-stricken nations.

The dirt-powered battery features a microbial fuel cell that recharges using free electrons that are abundant in soil bacteria. The foundation believes it could be used by rural health clinics and for charging mobile technology.

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