 Dear viewers, including distinguished guests, colleagues, PhD researchers, partners and friends of the Institute, but most importantly, all recent IHE Delft graduates and their family and friends from around the world, welcome to IHE Delft's second online graduation ceremony of 2021. As we are all well aware, this past year has turned our day-to-day lives upside down. Students at IHE Delft are no exception to this. This is why we chose to hold our annual graduation ceremony online, and this is also why we chose to do a second online graduation ceremony, as many more students needed some extra time to finish their MSc degrees than usual. This graduation ceremony will feature students that receive their diplomas in May, June and July, as well as those students that were unable to attend Delft to receive their diplomas in person. I'm very glad that so many of you could join us online today to celebrate the diploma awardings of many of our MSc students. Today's program includes a word of welcome from our Rector Eddie Morse, a speech from our guest speaker, Desiget Nidu, CEO of the Water Research Commission in South Africa, speakers from the Student Association Board of our graduating class. We will, of course, also show footage of students receiving their diplomas or photos of those students that were not in Delft to do so, and we have included two musical interludes in true IHE Delft style. Those of you that have seen our first online graduation ceremony 2021 will see some things for the second time, but I'm sure you'll bear with us as you realize that the friends and families of the students that are featured in this graduation ceremony have not yet seen these. I would also like to invite you to leave your comments of congratulations in the chat box from YouTube or Facebook. Note that you will only be able to do so if you are logged in. I will be showing some of these comments in the live stream of this event. Also note that there's a lag between who you see on the screen and the comments as they come into me. So the congratulations for a graduate will show after that actual graduate has been shown on video. However, don't let that stop you from sharing your congratulations. Now, without further ado, I would like to give the digital floor to our Rector Eddie Morse for his opening address. My name is Eddie Morse. I'm Rector of IHE Delft. On this special day in 2021, where we celebrate our new batch of students, I would like to welcome all of you, including your excellencies, colleagues, but for most family and students. And I'm quite happy that after such a special period, we're able to celebrate this day. And I'm welcoming all of the graduates to become a part of our alumni family that we have. And I'm happy that all of you managed to also achieve their final dates, their final exams and passed on. And I do think that with this special circumstances that we're there, that you also show to us what we think is very important. That's not only your academic skills, but also your leadership skills. And we think that leadership is something where it's not about becoming a CEO. No, it's about your willingness to actually use the knowledge that you gained and to apply this to improve the water sector. And through the water sector, also the environment and the society around you. And we hope to hear a lot from you when you're back, what you're going to do and what you achieve with the knowledge that you gained and how you applied that. I, on behalf of the Institute, would like to congratulate all of you. And I do hope to see you soon again in the next step of your life and your career. And I hope that even with those difficult days and times that we're in at the moment, we're still able to celebrate this achievement and this major achievement and step in your life together with everybody. On behalf of IC Delft, I wish you a very, very good day and a prosperous future. Next up on today's program is our guest speaker, Desiget Naidu, the CEO of the Water Research Commission in South Africa. The Water Research Commission is South Africa's only dedicated water research steering and funding institution. And it is also a long standing partner of IHG Delft. This is why we are honored that Desiget Naidu agreed to share his insights with our graduates from a water sector perspective. Greetings to the leadership of the University of Delft and in particular the leadership and faculty of the IHG program of UNESCO. All of the dignitaries that are in attendance today. And of course, a special greeting to the class of 2021. Congratulations. You have done incredibly well. Colleagues, I am privileged to be able to share a few words with you today on the event of this great occasion, this graduation. But the point I start is a fairly dismal one. We have just been through 2020. And I think we will all agree that we have been through the depths of the Dickensian winter of discontent. And that discontent has been generated by this COVID-19 virus. A pandemic that has engulfed every aspect of our lives. It has affected us economically as we couldn't work during this lockdown. It has affected our health, of course. It has affected us socially because human beings are gregarious creatures and we weren't able to express that for the better part of a whole year. It has affected us psychologically as a result of this impact. And of course, it has affected us academically because in our business, we need physical labor. We need to interact with other people. We need to engage. And the other problem that we have with this pandemic is that it's showing longevity. I think many of us thought we would be past this by now with the advent of the vaccines. But it seems like we're in it for the long haul, at least for 2021. And if this is not enough, there are four horses to this apocalypse. In addition to the pandemic, there is of course the global climate crisis. And it is intense. And in the global risk register that comes from the World Economic Forum, we see that the global climate crisis is accompanied by three other partners in this environmental quartet. There is biodiversity loss. There's the phenomenon of extreme weather events that we have to grapple with on an almost weekly, monthly basis, depending on where in the world you are. And then there is of course the water crisis. And the water crisis in itself has two very distinct dimensions. One is the issue of water insecurity and inability to have the right quantities of water at the right quality level for us to be able to do our daily activities, whether we are individuals or corporate citizens. And then of course, there's the issue of the conflict that is associated with a diminishing water supply in the world. Some very local conflicts, some very pronounced regional conflicts. We look at places like the Nile River Basin. And of course, the global geopolitics of water conflict is also coming into play. In addition to this, we have the notion of the global economic crisis. Some say that in spite of the dip that we have experienced with the COVID pandemic, we have in fact not really recovered from 2008. And this continues to be a bad die on the fabric of human society and of our global economies. And then there is the multilateral system. The multilateral system is fractured. It is limping along. It's limping along at the global level, like in the UN system. It's limping along around regional models. For example, the impact of Brexit on the EU, while other places are starting to show some level of resilience associated with this, if we see what's happening, for example, in the African Union environment. But here is the thing about winters of disconnect content. No matter how hard they are, no matter how cold they are, no matter how dark it is, they eventually disappear and they are fought out by the promise of spring. And I want to spend a little bit of time on the promise of spring, because this spring of hope has three very distinct theaters of operation. The first of those theaters is the political and social sphere. And 2021 has had a remarkable start to the year, much more so than we have seen for many years in the last little while. In January of this year, we saw the Climate Action Summit, hosted by the Netherlands, as you are hosted, and opened by Prime Minister Mark Ritter. It put out, with its 22 heads of state attending and the 50 ministers attending and leaders from every stakeholder group in society, including business attending, put out that there is a very definite vector of action that we should be pursuing going to the future, and in particular, organizing for adaptation to take its pride of place in the way we engage the climate crisis. In fact, Antonia Guterres made as part of his declaration in the summit that at least 50% of climate finance now needs to be redirected in the direction of adaptation. And for folk in the water sector, this is of course really useful to hear, because what this means is that as energy is to mitigation, water is in fact the key tool around adaptation. So greater investments in our domain is certainly look forward to. The next theater of operation is the Economic Theater of Operation. And in the Economic Theater of Operation, we've had some very important signals, beginning again in January with the World Economic Forum, having its virtual meeting under the banner of the great reset. And this is usually significant. This is about admitting that we have been on a difficult trajectory to date, but also perhaps more importantly, committing to organize, to reset to a much better future going forward. And I prefer to use a much more local word to my environment, a word from Africa, the Swahili word for a fresh start, the Swahili word for reset is upia. We are looking forward to a upia decade and maybe an upia century. But it didn't stop there. This discussion has been continuing with further commitments in various planes. And as we see in April in the spring meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions, the meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, there is once again a commitment in this direction. In fact, the theme of the spring meetings this year has been economic recovery towards a green, resilient and inclusive future. Now, a couple of years ago, we wouldn't have imagined that the Bretton Woods institutions would be speaking this way because they have been the primary supporters of an old economic paradigm, but clearly a penny has dropped. This theater of operation is at play already with very real examples. One of those examples is the movement of the pension funds away from fossil fuel investments into green investments. In fact, Sweden's AP1, which is 37.5 billion dollars in value, has already shifted 4.5 billion of those investments away from fossil fuels. I think this is a move in the right direction. And what the Discoopter Report has told us, that we also, as individuals, have the same agency. The third theater of operation, and the one I think that will excite you the most, of course, is science and innovation. Science and innovation has the ability to organize for us to move away from the current paradigm of 21st century problems being solved with 20th century technologies and 19th century operating rules. It is within our purview, within the work that you have done for your degrees to give us the stepping stones towards a success around a more resilient water economy in the world. Whether we're talking about recycling and reuse, water optimization with new efficiency measures, organizing for new behaviors around the way we manage water, investing in the 4IR toolbox to get us to a different state of play, and of course, water as the center of such nexies as the water energy food nexus that organize for the global acceleration framework of SDG6 to be realized, but also that water becomes a building block to economic recovery. But colleagues, as I wrap up, I want us to think about another aspect of water, a very important aspect of water, the aspect of water around the characteristics that have lessons for the way we do things. The first is this notion that although water is soft and flexible, virtually nothing can resist it. This comes from Lausue, the man that Confucius quoted. And this is so true that we have a fluidity in this sector that pervades every other sector in the world, and it is our responsibility as the practitioners. It is your responsibility as the new leadership to organize for us to have the right vector around that. The second characteristic which I think is really important is that although water is a great carrier of energy, as we see in tsunamis and in storm systems, its real power lies in persistence, that eroding the rock over millions of years is what creates the gorge and the way through. And this is an important lesson for your careers and your lives as you go forward, that persistence is something that will eventually win the day and we have to be resilient about it. But by far my favorite characteristic of water is the one that other compounds only express when they're in the solid state, when they're in a low energy state, when they have largely inertia as their characteristic and a real inability to do the things that need to be done. And this is around organizing to get together. And this phenomenal concept of hydrogen bonding allows water to become partnered with collaborators and organize a strength in that partnership that very few others can emulate. As anyone who has dived into water the wrong way has found out in the most difficult circumstances, it is for you as the new leadership of this water sector to build up those partnerships, to build up those networks and make them really count. In conclusion, colleagues, the graduating class of 2021, you are the lead company of the spring battalion that is going to lead us into a better pathway. You carry the hopes and the aspirations of the existing leaders and practitioners in this water system because you are defining that future. So the best of luck to all of you and congratulations. We are counting on you to be a formidable part of building back better, building forward greener and taking us to a more inclusive and a more equal world. I thank you. I would like to thank Desig and Nidu so much for his hopeful message. Next up in our program is the first one of our two musical interludes. Please sit back and enjoy watching an incredibly talented group of students performing You Raise Me Up. They will be followed by our student speakers reminiscing about the last 18 months that our graduates have studied at IHE Delft. Please sit back and enjoy. Hi, I'm Molly Torello. And I am Hemant Sarvia. And on behalf of the Student Association Board, we welcome you to the 2021 graduation ceremony from IHE Delft. Congratulations on officially becoming alumni. Well, this has been a more difficult year than the usual difficult at IHE, but we are happy to have made some good memories along the way. Finally, there are no more exams, no more BBB sessions, except maybe this one. All that's left is for us to celebrate our accomplishments. So please join us all in the SAB's reflection on our journey at IHE Delft and in Delft. Welcome to this much-awaited graduation day. Congratulations, everyone. And first of all, thank each of you on behalf of the SAB for placing your trust in us and letting us have this opportunity to represent you during your tenure at IHE. We want to today kind of have a fun conversation reminiscing some of the most significant memories from our stay at IHE. And I want to start off with the very first day when one of the teachers told me very promisingly that they will take us to the highest point in the Netherlands. And I climbed eight steps to reach that point just across the sea. What do you remember, Molly? I remember our trip to The Hague. It was our first real dance party we all had learning how to ride bikes for many of us and being able to spend the day on the beach. Uwane, what was your lasting memory of that great day we had? For me, I think, because we're all still warming up to one another. So when we're at The Hague Center, I think we all got to play fun games with the lecturers. Everyone got to loosen up. We're all from different countries and we just created lasting friendships that lasted throughout the course. I think that was the real time when we met actually each other and we saw those parties. And Anand, your birthday on that day was an icing on the cake. I think we really enjoyed that very well. Thank you for saying that. It made my day, honestly, at the end of a very long day. But also, I remember fully grown people falling off bicycles and that was really, really fun. Oh, I'm getting nostalgic now. That was our entry and this is our exit. But Anand, Molly and Mubane, I know this welcoming party was a great hit. But what will you all say about the Asian night? I think it was just perfect. I mean, to me, if you look at everything that we did outside our classrooms, that was a top highlight that brought out the best among our students. I mean, everyone had a great time and the color and cultural influx that hit everybody that night, I'm sure left some memories. Oh, man, we are a talented patch. The dances that night were my favorite parts. There was so much color and joy. It was amazing. The nice part was us being able to experience the different cultures far away from those countries. But my best act was from Bhutan. I think that day I can really feel everybody's energy in the auditorium. Everybody was cheering so high. So I can really feel that enthusiasm, but everybody was not aware of the coming situation. So I think that was a real fun that we all had. The conditions that we faced here didn't allow us to have the everywhere else in the world nights. So we had to find other ways to really bond and share culture with each other. So some of us maybe went on a barbecue or a long bike ride around the Netherlands. Mubani, what were some of your favorite memories that you've made around Delta in the Netherlands? Oh, my, you know, we got to hold some serious parties and one of the lecturers used to stay above us. So we got to show him some of our bright skills and hold different people to come together and cook. So every time we have a module finishing, we have these barbecue parties and I think people enjoyed them like anything. These were the times when they were like dancing, they were eating and they were getting wasted as well. And Anand, what was your experience? I mean, outside Meena, because I think most of these events happened in Meena. I was a bit removed from Meena, but I was never far away from the heat. Meena, Meena, Meena kept me awake at night. Meena kept me feeling the heat of the barbecues. You know, people could reach out to me because, you know, you know, corona I think also stressed out some people. It was, you know, it wasn't the same experience for everybody. So I think there was also this need to, you know, manage and moderate different energies among our batch mates, even though corona kind of locked us down indoors and kept us down to our rooms. It was good to see that, you know, it could not do much to dampen our spirits. The one time we all look forward to, at the end of all the modules is the field trip. You know, every student looked forward to the cultural setting, different environments of learning and socializing after a long, long time of learning. But this year it was kind of different when we approached that interesting time COVID heat. So it was kind of a tense moment, but the students still pushed. We bombarded the lecturers and pushed them and they eventually allowed us to go on this field trip. Simon, how was it for you? It was not the traditional field trip. It was somewhere like a day off or three days off from the natural, from the monotonous life that we were having with no reports to be submitted. That was the best part of the field trip, I suppose. And what about you, Molly? So our group was lucky and we got to go on a field trip of sorts. We went to a different city in the Netherlands and we walked to the highest point in the Netherlands. And I would say it was an international field trip because when we got lost on our walk, the sign said, welcome to Belgium. Now, I know a lot of fun has been discussed and it doesn't make it look like we didn't study at all. IT made us work hard, spoke to themselves, but extremely hard in really challenging circumstances. And that's the only reason why a bunch of nearly 170 students were ready to do their thesis despite the constraints and the limitations and the challenges that were posed by coronavirus on their imagination and sometimes perhaps even aspirations. But I think the school came together as a unit and made thesis possible in the best manner possible. And I think a big, big shout out to everyone on successfully completing their thesis and being ready to graduate. Molly? This year has proven how adaptable we are, especially us as a batch. Things have been constantly changing. Programs haven't worked. We've had to really become creative in other ways in order to continue getting our education completed here. And I think that should be acknowledged. For me, I think I can really push a person. We've all got to get together then the midnight oil, but the teamwork, the collaborations, it's something out of this world. You have to experience it. One can say. Molly, continuing from where you left, I think adaptation was from the IHE side as Anand said as well. Teachers adapted to our needs, to our stresses. So that sudden, that done, I think I, from on behalf of SAB, I'd like to congratulate everybody who is graduating today and they are ready for the next ventures in their life. What do you say, Anand? Absolutely. And I just cannot tell you how grateful I am on behalf of all of us for having this opportunity to learn and live at IHE. And I really wish every one of our fellow students great success in their lives, continue to excel as you have at IHE and all the very best. I hope you enjoyed listening to the address by association board members of this graduating class. Thank you so much for sharing memories of this unforgettable year that you've all had. The next part of our program is our musical interlude, a second musical interlude with the same talented band members playing Lean on Me. This will be followed by the actual online graduation ceremony showing our students receiving their diplomas and photos of those students that were not able to be endowed to do so. Don't forget to share your messages of congratulations via the chat box as you sit back and enjoy this festive event. Please stay safe and we look forward to meeting many of you, including our recent graduates, in the future.