Drew Fitzgerald co-founded 501CTHREE with Jaden Smith. 501CTHREE is a non-profit dedicated to driving innovation around global water, energy, health, and shelter solutions. You’re likely familiar with their Water Box which started in Flint Michigan and has now scaled throughout the US providing safe and clean drinking water to hundreds of thousands of Americans from historically marginalized communities.

Drew also co-founded JUST water with Jaden and Will Smith. JUST Water is a certified B Corp that made one of the first plant-based water bottles, reducing single-use plastic and emissions associated with bottled water.

Before 501CTHREE and Just Water, Drew was the Creative Innovation Director at MIT’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Creative Director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT. 

In our conversation, we talk about how Drew has combined his background in design and innovation to bring technology out of the lab and into viable products. He has applied his skills to create real-world solutions to interconnected problems around climate, water, food, energy, and race.  

Shortly after this interview, I went to the Dominican Republic for a beach clean-up with the nonprofit Players for the Planet. Some of the best baseball players in the world and a number of athletes from other sports came together to raise awareness. I’ve been playing beach volleyball professionally for over a decade and have never seen a beach without plastic. The beaches we cleaned in the DR were the worst I’ve ever seen. It made it very clear to me that beach cleanups are just bandaids. In order to effect real systemic change, we need corporations to pay for the true cost of externalities of their products. That won’t happen without better materials, like the plant-based bottle Drew and the team at Just Water designed, and real policy change.