Wetskills Water Challenge in Muscat, Oman from 7-18 March 2020. We were back in this amazing, beautiful country with international teams of enthusiastic young water talents. Because of the corona virus outbreak, the program was slightly rescheduled, and finished one day earlier. All teams came up with innovative ideas for their cases, and team 5 was the final winning team with their concept for the Local Water Footprint Hub Initiative.

This Wetskills Water Challenge was aligned to the Amsterdam International Water Week 2019. Teams of students and young professionals from various countries worked on real life water cases in a two-week programme (October 25 – November 7) with site visits and meetings with water experts. Their main challenge: to think out-of-the-box and develop innovative, realistic concepts. The teams presented their ideas during the finals on 5 November as part of the AIWW program, where they will also joined the Future Water Leaders Programme.

India & Water: huge water challenges with both droughts and floods. 'Integrated Water Management and Flood Control' was the central theme of this Wetskills event in Kerala, India, aligned to a high-level business delegation visit from the Netherlands to Kerala (Kochi) on 18 October.

Wetskills organized the first Water Challenge in Hungary! This edition of Wetskills brought the participants to the beautiful city of Budapest for a two-weeks programme, with workshops, teamwork, visits to water-related locations and meetings with water-experts. The finals and awarding were aligned to the Budapest Water Summit. ‘Preventing water crises is the most important commandment of our time.’

India & Water: huge water challenges. This third Wetskills event in India was focusing on (waste)water treatment, public involvement and creating a lively testing facility 'WETLAB' at the Barapullah Drain in Delhi. The finals were during the Tech Summit in Delhi on 15 and 16 October 2019.

Wetskills was in South Korea for the second time, after the first Olympic edition in winter 2018. Some 20 participants were joining the event! They worked together with international peers on challenging water cases, in a 2-weeks program with team building, field visits and real-life cases submitted by case owners. Follow this event, it has started at August 26!

Wetskills-Mexico 2019 was another great event! The participants were in Mexico City for a 2-weeks program with challenging cases, meetings with water-experts and visits to interesting water-related locations. The finals and awarding ceremony were during Aquatech-Mexico 2019. 

For the first time ever, a Wetskills Water Challenge was organized in Bangladesh. Through cooperation with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and the CORE project for Community Resilience for flood protection in urban delta areas, Wetskills was in Dhaka and Sirajganj with a programme from June 30 – July 12, 2019. Central theme: Flood resilience during the monsoon season. Winning team: Team Sanitation Stars, with their Gender-friendly Flood Proofing Sanitation System, focusing on community based resiliences.

An international team of students and young water professionals from Romania and the Netherlands joined the Wetskills-Rominia 2019 event. They worked on challenging water issues and presented their ideas during the Official Opening of the Flood Proof Romania Polder, a unique testing facility for smart water management solutions.

Join the new Wetskills initiative in Oman: the Wetskills Water Challenge in Muscat from 15-25 March 2019. Celebrate World Water Day in this unique country in the Middle East with enthusiastic young water talents from various countries. Bring in good ideas for the Water-Energy-Food nexus and be prepared for the the WorldExpo Dubai 2020.

Wetskills Foundation with partners Center for Environment Education, DuurzaamDoor (RVO.nl) and Gujarat Pollution Board organized the second Wetskills edition in India.

Tehran-Iran, Minister of Environment and Infrastructure of Kingdom of The Netherlands, Ms. Schultz van Haegen announced and awarded the winning team of Wetskills-Iran. The Wetskills jury found that returning a flamingo to Lake Urmia to raise awareness on all kinds of levels in society (from primary schools to farmers to municipalities) was the idea worth awarding.

Taipei / Tainan, Taiwan – After 5 years of cooperation with the Taiwanese water sector, Wetskills Water Challenge was organized in Taiwan for the first time. It was merged with the Water Youth Camp of Water Resources Agency in Taiwan. 24 Taiwanese and 12 Dutch participants were mixed in 6 teams, each with its own challenge. Visit this event page, see the Wetskills Movie & the News item of Formosa TV

Boston, Massachusetts, United States – After 19 successful editions worldwide in the last six years, of which two in North America, the Wetskills Water Challenge was organized in Boston for the first time (after last year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin).

Team ARCADIS won with the out-of-the-box concept 'Safety on Pillars', a multipurpose bridge to raise awareness for climate proofing the Seaport district in Boston.

On the 16th of May five groups of young water professionals presented their innovative ideas for water related challenges during the Wetskills competition. The winning team presented an impressive solution for dealing with drought and flooding in the Inkomati river basin area, shared by South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique. Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs of the Netherlands was the head of the jury. He praised the five international teams for their out-of-the-box thinking.

Ahmedabad, India – After 16 successful editions in five years, the Wetskills Water Challenge was organized in India for the first time. This Wetskills program started on 28 November and ended on 11 December. 24 students and young professionals in the Dutch and Indian water industry competed to develop an innovative concept for five case studies from various partners in India.

On 5 June 2015, the new edition of the Wetskills Water Challenge started in Bucharest. After the successful event in 2013, Wetskills was invited by the Politehnica to hold a new event. 18 students from Romanian and Dutch universities participated in the two-weeks programme. The programme started in Constanta with the teambuilding trip to wastewater treatment plant and a construction site of Van Oord’s project aimed at preventing further costal erosion. The Wetskills final presentations and awarding ceremony were held during the ExpoApa (17 June).

Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada – Water Hollistics is the next winner of the Wetskills Water Challenge. The edition in Toronto was held for the first time in North America, from 5th to 19th of June. The teams of students from various Dutch, American and Canadian universities presented their innovative concepts during the Ryerson Urban Water Day (17th of June), which took place at the Ryerson University in Toronto. The awarding ceremony took place at the Canadian Water Summit a day later.

Tel Aviv – On Sunday 8 December Mr. Wientjes (President of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW)) awarded a team of two Israeli and two Dutch water students. This team won the prestigious Wetskills Water Challenge Israel 2013 with their out-of-the-box concept “Reclaim Agriculture”, about improving the social context of using reclaimed water for agricultural purposes in Arabic areas in Israel.

The first edition of the Wetskills Water Challenge in Bucharest was organized in 2013. 20 students from Romanian and Dutch universities participated in the two-weeks programme. The programme had a great team building weekend in Bran, Brasov, Sinaia and Bucharest. The Wetskills final presentations and awarding ceremony were held during the ExpoApa.

For more than 36 years, the Advisory Panel on Water Management (APP) contributed to Egyptian-Dutch development cooperation in the water sector. The Panel has always functioned as a think-thank and as a communication body between departments and ongoing water and sanitation projects. The Wetskills teams presented their cases during a presentation event in the Egyptian/Dutch High level panel meeting on Water Management (28 and 29 November 2012).