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.The awards were given at the trade dinner for the Dutch mission to Iran headed by Ms. Schultz van Haegen.
Following two weeks of hard work, cooperation and fun, the fice Wetskills teams presented their pitches and posters of this Wetskills Water Challenge in Iran on Sunday 24th October. The ideas pitched were vastly ranging from technical solutions to give more time in adapting lifestyle for Rafsajan pistachio farmers to integrating sensor technology to create awareness by installing a large flamingo in Lake Urmia, reacting to water level, to entice inhabitants to a race to fill up the lake. A nice new introduction of rice farming in combination with dredging was given as solution for silting up of Anzali port and peach juice production as alternative livelihoods for the Hashgerd plain included a good sense of community work and regional economy development. Missing links were noticed in society and technology for the case of clean drinking water and by closing the gaps a solution was found.
Pictures from awarding
Pictures from finals:
