Day 4 & 5 – The Monday morning after a Sunday of hard work and good night of sleep in the bungalows in Hattem started early with a lot of energy and enthusiasm from all the groups. They checked out and took the bus straight to the World Water Academy where they were given a warm welcome by the staff.
Figure: Entrance of the beautiful building of the World Water Academy (Nieuwegein)
Mr Johan successfully welcomed everyone, introduced the programme and gave a chance to each group to introduce themselves and the cases they are working on. He did the same also to the experts and gave them a chance to introduce themselves. Thereafter, the teams and the experts were given a chance to prepare for Regional Brain Hurricane 3. The process started where the participants had to do one of the important factors of Wetskills; “think-outside-the-box”, but they also used Dropbox to store ideas (useful boxes) they thought of. Every expert was given ten minutes to listen, criticize and comment to each group of which was fruitful and stressful to the participants.
Figure left: The Director of the Wetskills Foundation Mr Johan Oost welcoming the participants and the experts, middle & right: Lunch time with the experts
After acquiring of a lot of ideas from experts, the participants went to lunch with the experts where they also got a chance to network and get clarity in the points they did not understand. The case owners of case 2, VP Delta, and Case 4, Waternet, were also present in the panel of experts and they took their groups for a field visit. The other remaining groups were left in the building discussing Action Plans for their cases. Sadly one of the participants from Oman named Mr Hamed Al-Battashi had to go back Wednesday to his country and attend work that really needed his presence.
Figure: Case 2 of VP Delta and Case 4 of Waternet teams in the fields
Case 2 group was taken by the case owner of VP Delta, Michiel Pols, to see the hydro-power station where the energy is used for pumping water and Case 4 group went to visit Waternet with case owner Jacques van Alphen.
Late in the afternoon all the groups met at the Easy Hotel in Rotterdam where they all checked in to their rooms.
Figure: Hotel and Trip around Rotterdam
After checking in the hotel, the nice Dutch participants Mr Jasper van den Heuvel, Mr Erwin Schoen, Mr Joel Verstoep and Mr Glenn Morvan from Honduras showed the other participants nice and interesting places in Rotterdam. Then lastly the groups on Case 2 and Case 4 had to meet with the group mentors Frank and Floor to discuss the Action plans to prepare for the next day.
By Aphelele Mgabisa & Hamed Al-Battashi
