After the successful ‘Royal’ Wetskills Oman in 2012 and the unique SunGlacier Challenge in 2018, Wetskills will be back in Oman!
Since our first Challenge in Oman, in 2012, the relations between Wetskills, the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) and the Dutch Embassy have remained warm. Not surprisingly SQU and Wetskills combined forces again last spring to organize a unique SunGlacier Challenge, and in September five Omani students from SQU participated in Wetskills the Netherlands. Time for another Wetskills Challenge back in the Sultanate of Oman, the country of Arab horses, 3,156 kilometers coastline, kingfish and kebab, fjord-like landscape (the Norway of the Middle East!), aromas and knives (khanjar, no worries – now a days only worn forceremonial events).
But Oman is also a country with severe challenges, including droughts and water scarcity, water salinity and desertification. As one of the oldest human-inhabited places in the world, Oman now faces the impact of human development. Those challenges cannot be addressed without considering water, energy and food as an integrated whole (nexus) and Oman is very well aware of that. Oman and the rest of the Gulf region are excelling with their WEF nexus approach and this offers a great context for our next Wetskills Challenge.
From March 15-26 (arrival-departure) the Sultan Qaboos University will again host a Wetskills Challenge in Muscat, with the Water-Energy-Food nexus as the central theme. This will be the first of probably three challenges in the Gulf region with the nexus theme, ending with a ‘grand finale’ during the World Expo2020 in Dubai (which will be all about WEF!).
Do you have a passion for the environment and water in particular, do you like to look for connections and meet new cultures, and are you ready to think out of the box about a real-life case study? Then it’s time to sign up!
