September 2018

Winner Wetskills-The Netherlands 2018 awarded by new Ambassador Ennik Somi Douma

Posted on September 27, 2018
in News
by JohanOost

Ennik Somi Douma, as new Wetskills Ambassador, announced team ODWater existing of team members Pann Ei Ei Phyoe (Myanmar), Alaa Al Hinai (Oman), Mtembu Ntsika (South Africa) and Emiel Geerts (The Netherlands) as winners from Wetskills Water Challenge The Netherlands 2018. Mtembu presented a great 2-minute pitch about the team's concept Water Wide Web 3.1 about a circular system for renewable energy implemented in cities. The finals of this event was organised during the European Water Tech Week in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands). The jury had to choose between four out-of-the-box concepts focused on water challenges in The Netherlands. The concepts were created by teams existing of young water talents from eight different countries worldwide. The jury chose Water Wide Web 3.1. as winner, because of the potential to scale-up and implement the concept to other cities. The concept is to store energy in various levels (household, neighbourhood and city) with the use of...

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From strangers to family

Posted on September 27, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Nhlanhla Dube   The 26th of September finally arrived. The day everyone had been tirelessly working towards. This was the day all teams would do their pitches and present their posters, and only one team would come out victorious at the end of the day. The day began just as all the days for the past two weeks, the only twist was how everyone was dressed to the nines. Dolev spotting a bow tie, Amir wearing a suit, a sight we have been told is as rare as a Dutch man who doesn’t drink beer.   We all headed to the World Trade Centre where the competition would take place. Welcomed with fresh coffee and delicious cookies , the venue was filled with warmth and brain capacity big enough to fill a stadium. All posters were displayed at the entrance of the hotel, and you could feel the sense of pride in all...

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Happy Ending

Posted on September 26, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

by Kathiya Ali Alaufi   We start our challenge day, the day which summarizes the work for two weeks, by poster and 2 minutes pitch. Wetskills finals is a part of Water technology week 2018 in World Trade Center Leeuwarden (WTC). When we arrived at the WTC, I liked the moment when I see many people from different countries and many posters with our four group posters, because it is a first time in my life I am a participant in a big conference. Each group was very excited about their work so we started taking photos, each group with their poster. I liked working with Amir (Israel), Juanita (Columbia) and Dube (South Africa) because they are helpful and funny people.     Then, we attended the first session about Chinese wastewater treatment and concept plan, prof. Kaijun Wang, Tsinghua University, China. Then, wetskills finals started by a small introduction about the wetskills by Johan...

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Deadlines day !

Posted on September 24, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Pann Ei Ei Phyoe   As the final of the wetskills challenge is getting closer, the young professionals are also getting ready with each own project and conceptual ideas. The final of the challenge is in two days and the urgency to be ready of the supporting documents for the challenge is getting important. Therefore, the goals of today’s program are to finalize the posters and to finish the reports which are based on the concepts that we were developing the past week. The weather outside the church of the water campus, the location where we work, the water is pouring from the sky heavily. However, the people seems not caring much on the 11 degree weather, rather, working on individual tasks of each own.   As we have to finalize all the deadlines and goals, all four groups have started the day since 8 AM and had been finalized both the poster...

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Beginning in Sneek, Ending with delicious soup

Posted on September 23, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Fatema Al Mendhry   The day was started in the camping site with a light breakfast. I really liked this town but we left the place at 10:30am. The weather was rainy and cold so first we decided to cancel the visit to Sneek but I was really excited to visit different places in the Netharlands therefore, we decided to do a quick tour in Sneek. After we arrived to Sneek, we had a cup of coffee in a nice cafe. Then, we walked around the city for an hour where we snapped some photos.       After that the grear tour in Sneek we returned back to our hostel (Alibi hostel) where we took a bit of rest and then went shopping from Jumbo store. Then, the groups started to think about the case and complete the poster design because tomorrow will be  the deadline for poster submissions. later, we enjoyed a delicious vegetarian...

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But first, coffee! A photo essay.

Posted on September 22, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Bianca Mogos     Slow Start at the camping site We started the day very late and slowly. Since we didn’t have to work on this morning, we indulged ourselves with a bit more rest. Had breakfast (but not coffee!!) in front of our cabins, in the warm sunlight of the morning. However, before we started the tour, we stopped for a much-needed cup of coffee. Our day was off to a great start!   Shortly about the Afsluitdijk: it was built between 1927 and 1932; it measures 32 kilometres; it connects directly the provinces of Fryslan and Noord-Holland; it is a primary water barrier in The Netherlands; it does not meet the safety standards anymore; the enforcement constructions started this year and they will be continuing until 2022; after that: it will be able to withstand a superstorm (1 in 10,000 years); fish migration will be possible; renewable energy will be generated by a hydroelectric...

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Water music and the Frisian countryside

Posted on September 21, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

by Sibghat Ullah   I started my day by waking up at usual time & got ready for going to Water Campus. Before leaving home what I saw outside through window a very heavy rain thunder with combination of strong wind. After getting that normal somehow I moved ahead to water campus. I showed the pitch to my group members there. As we are the first group so our supervisor first asked us to show up with our pitch and poster logo. I presented pitch out of my group, they appreciated my pitch and loved our poster logo.   What I saw in the hall, a DJ setting up his instrument for European Water Tech Week Leeuwarden (EWTW), the interesting part he was not a normal DJ, He could play the music with the water. I really wished I could hear music but unfortunately I was leaving the Leeuwarden and the next day he...

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Trying new things in my own country, via Wetskills :)

Posted on September 20, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Max Salemans   Pitch and Poster training The morning after the interesting, but very confusing counting game, that could easily be used to test how well a person’s short-term memory is functioning, everyone arrived surprisingly fresh at the church to start the day with the pitch and poster training by Ioana and Peter.   During this training Peter showed us a variety of posters and had all of us choose which one we found the most and the least attractive and why. After this exercise it became clear what elements make a good poster, which we are currently trying to implement into design of our own poster.   After Peter’s presentation, and a short coffee break, Ioana shared her knowledge on how to give a good pitch. By evaluating some previous Wetskills pitches, it was very clear how to convey a message in a short amount of time and also what the effects are of body...

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I just had a GREAT birthday!

Posted on September 19, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Amir Nakar   My name is Amir, I come from Israel, and today, September 19this my birthday. But I'll get to that. This morning actually kicked off with our team (Dube, Kathiya, her husband Masoud and myself) being picked up by Mr. Joost Paques to visit the Paques company in Balk. Mr. Paques is our case owner, and we went to see the company to further understand our mission, to ask questions and (honestly) to have fun. After settling in a nice room with some good coffee at Paques, we set to work. We put all of our ideas up on the whiteboard, working together to try and figure out exactly how to solve our problem: attracting international companies to join a business hub started by Paques. Our research from the previous day was used and pretty quickly we managed to fill up the board with ideas, which we now had...

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Beautiful Netherlands

Posted on September 18, 2018
in Blogs, Wetskills Netherlands 2018
by Peter de Jong

By Tahani Bait Suwailam   The day was started with our walk at sharp 8:30 am to the Leeuwarden water campus where I was fascinated by the breath-taking views of the beautiful streets and paths surrounded by the lush- green grass, flowers and Blackberries. Water canals, stone paved streets, boats, and the energetic bicyclists resembles an authentic Dutch environment in a magnificent scenery. On our way to the Leeuwarden Water campus, my colleagues and I we were stopped by passage of a train headed to Groningen which is one of the Beautiful towns of the Netherlands.   In the campus, every team was working on their case topics and my team with case 3 had first a group meeting to discuss the ideas and further improvements, then we had a skype meeting with our case owner where we discussed our ideas and plans to address the topic, and we had some tips and advices from...

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