Bluewater attends Innovate4Water Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, steps up Africa expansion
Nairobi, Kenya, April 26, 2018 – Bluewater, a world leading drinking water technologies innovator, will be joining over 350 water sector movers and shakers at the Innovate4Water Forum in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to discuss urban drinking water issues. The gathering provides an ideal opportunity for Bluewater to drive its newly-launched one-million-dollar urban drinking water challenge to entrepreneurs across Africa.
“The Imagine H20 urban drinking water scarcity challenge is geared to identify and deploy entrepreneurial solutions to tackle clean drinking water issues in mega-cities across the planet, including Africa,” said Anders Jacobson, President of Bluewater. He said the initiative, announced early April together with Bluewater partners 11th Hour Racing and Imagine H2O, will address urban drinking water shortages in a world where the UN predicts some 5.7 billion people will be living in urban areas running short of drinking water by 2050.
“The Innovate4Water Forum is a matchmaking forum for sustainable development across the African continent and we look forward to engaging with many of Africa’s leading water sector stakeholders,” said Mr. Jacobson. The two-day Nairobi Innovate4Water Forum brings together entrepreneurs, investors, large and small companies, non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, and incubators from 40 African countries who are contributing to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 6.
Mr. Jacobson noted how the spectre of a collapse in urban water supply came close to becoming a reality in Cape Town earlier this year as the South African city faced extreme rationing and the closing of household taps. Cape Town is not alone. According to a 2014 study reported in Global Environmental Change journal, one in four cities of 200 studied around the world are already in a situation of ‘water stress’.
“The Imagine H2O Urban Drinking Water Scarcity Challenge is directed at unleashing the power of water entrepreneurship and innovation to find solutions to the urban drinking water scarcity nightmare scenario flagged by the United Nations,” said Bluewater President Anders Jacobson, also co-founder and CEO of Bluewater’s holding company, Blue.
The Global Innovation Challenge will be opened to applications in early May 2018, more information is available here.
Editors notes
Imagine H2O is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering people to deploy and develop innovation to solve water challenges globally. The organization’s water innovation accelerator provides entrepreneurs with the resources, insight and visibility to launch and scale water solutions. By partnering with industry and policy experts and a global network of customers and investors, Imagine H2O has become a proven path to market for emerging water technology businesses. Since 2009, organization’s program alumni have collectively raised more than 1 in every 10 dollars of venture capital in the water industry. www.ImagineH2O.org
11th Hour Racing establishes strategic partnerships within the sailing and maritime communities to promote collaborative, systemic change benefitting the health of our ocean. Since 2010, 11th Hour Racing has been harnessing the power of sport with an innovative and comprehensive approach through three primary areas of engagement: grantees, partners, and ambassadors. Please visit us at www.11thhourracing.org
Bluewater is a world leader innovating, manufacturing, and commercializing water purification technologies and solutions for residential, business and public use that harness the company’s patented reverse osmosis technology to remove virtually all pollutants from water, including lead, bacteria, pesticides, medical residues, chlorine, micro plastic fibres and lime-scale. Please visit us at www.bluewatergroup.com
For more information please contact David Noble, Bluewater head of PR & Communication, at david.noble@bluewatergroup.com or +7785 302 694
Bluewater and 11th Hour Racing are signatories to the United Nations #CleanSeas Pledge.