Singapore International Water Week

Singapore’s upcoming International Water Week will commence July 1-5 in order to encourage innovative water technologies. This is the fifth annual water week that Singapore has held, and this one has as its focus “Water Solutions for Livable and Sustainable Cities.” The goal is to both raise awareness of and to promote the innovations for sustainable water management within urban settings. The water industry powers in Singapore recognize the need to create innovative product designs for densely populated urban areas due to the projected scarcity in water availability of the future.

The water week festivities will feature over 15,000 participants and 650 different companies. Additionally, they have rallied some of the biggest names in the water industry into one place. Such names include Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program and Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Kamal Nath, India’s Minister of Urban Development, Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, Pamela Cox, Vice-president (East Asia and the Pacific) at World Bank, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources as well as Professor Wim Kuijken, Commissioner of the Delta Program in the Netherlands.

Among the week’s festivities are three different sections: The Water Expo, The Industrial Solutions Water Forum, and the TechXchange workshop.

This Year’s Innovations

This year’s Water Expo will feature Singapore’s six new home-grown innovations with water such as Aquaporin based biomimetic membranes—which will be used for water reuse and desalinization—and water quality monitoring systems using live fish—this is known as the Fish Activity Monitoring System. It works through a video system which monitors the rising and falling of fish populations in tanks.

The Industrial Solutions Water Forum is where the voices of the water industry can meet together to discuss the future of water. Such discussion topics are the scarcity of the resource, environmental regulation, and the question of investments dealing in energy-efficient water solutions to the rising costs of energy. Every member who attends Water Week gets free entry to this forum.

This is the second year for the TechXchange workshop. This unique program focuses its energies on enlisting investment funds. Along with business pitch hearings from water innovators, this workshop features prototype booths, and a matchmaking program to target businesses to different innovations. Essentially, this is the hottest networking hub around water-wise.

Along with hoping to promote innovative water solutions worldwide, Singapore hopes to use this Water Week as a way to be recognized on a global level for their pioneering work on the subject. They hope that this recognition will lead leaders in the industry to use Singapore as a base for projects.

The beauty of events such as this is that the rest of the world benefits from the experiences, trial-and-error, and successes of of the people of Singapore. They are struggling with issues decades ahead of other 1st world countries, so we have the opportunity to learn well ahead of time what works and what doesn’t. So go check out the festival, even if only online, and support this expression of learning given freely to the global community!

Check out the Singapore International Water Week website.