PROVIDENCE – Rainwater for Humanity, a student group launched in 2009 by a collaboration of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design students, plans to become an official nonprofit agency.

The group will present its plans at the Global Health and Innovation Conference at Yale University next month.

Rainwater for Humanity members develop low-cost rain-harvesting mechanisms with a team at Mahatma Gandhi University in the state of Kerala in South India.

Brown students design collection tanks that are built by staff on-site in India. Students meet with their India-based collaborators weekly via Skype calls.

Rainwater for Humanity has 14 tanks supplying water to 60 families in Achinakom, a village in the Kuttanad region of Kerala, and hopes to expand to more villages.

The group wants to turn their model of reinvesting harvested water sales into more tanks into an official nonprofit organization, which would allow them to pitch investors.

The group also will sponsor summer trips to India for Brown.

The Yale conference also includes a competition that recognizes the best presentation of participating groups. •