Mike Kellett, an Icon of Change from the United Kingdom

Icons of Change International Awards 2025

Mike Kellett
Founder & CEO, XEROSTREAM by Airowater International
Telecom Innovator, Water Technology Pioneer, Social Impact Entrepreneur

SDG Focus: Sustainable Development Goal 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation
Changemaker in Water Innovation and Equitable Resource Access (United Kingdom)

For over four decades, Mike Kellett has been a visionary at the intersection of technology, social enterprise, and humanity. From transforming global communications to redefining access to clean water, his career reflects a consistent truth — that innovation must serve people, not just profit.

A telecommunications pioneer, Mike is best known as the original architect of SMS Call Technology, a SIM-based innovation that dismantled international roaming monopolies and paved the way for truly global mobile communication. His collaboration with Bart Verkruijssen and the BT/Alcatel joint venture redefined how billions connect, placing him among the architects of the modern digital age. Recognized internationally, he represented the UK at the 2009 CES Unveiled in Las Vegas and was selected for the 2012 London Olympics “This is Great Britain” Technology Showcase, honors reserved for the nation’s most transformative innovators.

After three decades of engineering digital breakthroughs, Mike made a bold and deeply personal pivot — from connecting people through devices to sustaining life itself. In 2024, he founded XEROSTREAM by Airowater International, a revolutionary clean water enterprise using atmospheric water generation (AWG) technology to produce pure, mineral-rich drinking water directly from air. The system, developed after a decade of nanotechnology research, captures moisture from the atmosphere and purifies it through advanced nano-filtration, creating an inexhaustible, infrastructure-free water source.

Under Mike’s leadership, XEROSTREAM represents a paradigm shift in global water access. By eliminating reliance on plastic bottles and central distribution systems, it advances multiple UN goals — SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). Its stainless-steel, plastic-free design combats microplastic contamination, while its zero-waste process reduces both carbon emissions and ocean-bound pollutants.

But Mike’s vision extends beyond technology. Through a global empowerment model, XEROSTREAM equips communities across four continents to own, operate, and commercialize the technology themselves. Independent Ambassador Dealers and International Master Dealers drive local production and access, transforming consumers into partners in sustainability. In his words, “Water is life. The air holds enough for all. Let’s end the bottle — and begin the future.”

His initiative builds upon a legacy of exploration — following in the footsteps of his ancestor, Sir Henry Kellett, the 19th-century maritime explorer who charted unknown seas. Like his forebear, Mike continues to chart new frontiers, but now in the vast and urgent domain of water equity. From the ROAMOBI Project, which achieved a one-number global communication system, to the WWW4SCHOOLS initiative, providing free broadband to senior high schools in Africa, his projects consistently bridge innovation with inclusion.

With over 25,000 volunteer hours and a lifetime of service to social causes, Mike Kellett has demonstrated that technology, when directed by conscience, can change the trajectory of humanity. His leadership in XEROSTREAM affirms that the solution to one of our greatest challenges — water insecurity — can be found not beneath the earth, but within the air we breathe.

By honoring Mike Kellett with the Icons of Change International Award 2025, we recognize a man whose inventions have both connected and sustained the world. His work reflects the spirit of Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation — advancing universal access, responsible innovation, and a future where every family, in every nation, can drink safely and sustainably from the sky.

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