 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Sudhir Murati. I was the former vice vice president of international water association. I've had a career in innovation both in the adoption. I was the innovation chief of a very large water utility serving Washington DC for 16 years and more recently I've been involved in the commercialization of new technologies. So I know this field from many different perspectives and it was really very rewarding for me to watch this movie The Brave Blue World and it's very inspirational and certainly would like to thank Paul Oklahan for an outstanding and thought-provoking the movie and documentary that he helped produced and led the production of. I want to introduce Paul as our leadoff panelist. Paul, I think of him as an inside out person and his qualifications kind of talk about it. He has a degree in biochemistry, a strong science fundamental but he finished it off with a PhD in innovation and so he takes a perspective of innovation from the inside understanding the core fundamentals and then explaining it and developing it out from into what it is and the movie The Brave Blue World speaks to that and it talks about innovation, it talks about some of the fundamentals of how we can inspire change in water. Paul, he started a company called Blue Tech Research which is now quite famous just about a decade ago. He noticed that the adoption rate in the water sector was very slow. It takes sometimes 10 years to adopt a new technology and that's quite frustrating for innovators and so his mission with Blue Tech Research is really to create that change in the water sector and how we can change the adoption rate of technologies and he's also a strong fan of entrepreneurship and you can see that in the movie this whole aspect of entrepreneurship in water. Paul is an optimist, he believes that you can inspire change and you can have and you can solve the global water crisis using innovation and technology and it's his mission to make that happen. Paul, I would like you to perhaps describe how you develop this movie and what was the inner workings in your mind when you came up with this concept. Thanks Sudhir. I was happy to be a conduit for the film. I do think that you know for those of us who work in the sector day in day out, everyone on this panel, everyone watching in, the members of the IWA, we're all committed to trying to make a difference to the work that we do and there's you know there's a motivation and a purpose to our work and we want to make a difference. What I began to see was that there were certain parts of the world that things really worked and it's not for lack of technology or finance that that we're not able to solve all these water challenges that we face it's really policy, finance, technology and people and people are really the key piece and if you look at where things really start to click with water that common denominator is when ordinary citizens get engaged with this topic and so I felt there was a narrative out there that was a very doom and gloom narrative that people are hearing if I mentioned what I was doing in certain parts of the world this oh water will be the next oil or people will fight wars over water there were other places where people would really connect with this and they would be excited to tell me oh well you know we've got water reuse in Singapore and when I say I was a conduit for the film the stories were there to be told okay those positive stories are out there and when I began to explore this idea of using storytelling as a medium I found that there was incredible support from a broad range stakeholders the Water Environment Federation, DuPont, Zylem, L'Orealis who has all believed that this was something worthwhile for us to pursue and and then it became an incredible roller coaster and an incredible journey and there's the whole magic that goes with you know putting these stories together and people came on board in ways we couldn't have imagined Liam Neeson and others like Matt Damon and Jayden Smith but more importantly it was the characters in the stories like Beth Koegi in Kenya or Frank Rogala in Spain or Dixon with Sanivation that really struck a chord with people and people made that's what we were looking for it was that emotional connection so now that we've completed that film we're excited to be sharing that message and I think that's why this panel today is is great because everyone involved here is very futuristic and forward-looking in their own way whether that is looking at innovative tariff structures for water which Rose will speak about to deal with equity issues and affordability or equity in terms of people participating which I know that Yati will cover and T has been involved in a very interesting scenario planning project and France of course with Procter and Gamble and the 50 liter home initiative is looking at how on earth can we make 50 liters feel like 500 liters and that's all super exciting stuff to be focusing on. Thanks Paul that's really really inspiring. Storytelling is the way to go right it's how one can actually create change is through inspiration and telling stories. France, France Besnick is with Procter and Gamble he's the head of R&D and Sustainable Innovation at that company but France actually prefers to be called a climate activist and he works at a big multinational company but that's what he sees himself as that's his role serving just maybe just a few billion customers five billion customers around the world. France has over 20 years of experience in R&D. He's a passionate innovation leader and with a track record of really many different products in PNG in brands like Tide, Iriel, Swiffer, Mr. Clean. France in his past role was involved in the single rents and cold washing innovation at Procter and Gamble but also he was instrumental in this single dose concept the Tide Pods. I've used Tide Pods quite a bit myself so so France's latest initiative which I coined Podularization is this 50-liter home and so I'd like France to maybe describe this 50-liter home concept in the context of innovating in the water sector and innovating for our customers and the public. France? Thanks Andrea, thanks. As the global head of sustainable innovation for PNG I've been always obsessed with water in fact 70% of our products use water in the homes whether it's shampoo under the shower soap and the kitchen the bathroom sink or you know a handish product under the kitchen faucet or laundry or toilet and that really is how it conditioned my life of innovators. I started to create single rents and detergents as you say but you know really that took another dimension about two years ago when the famous day zero looming day zero was the threat in Cape Town and that really was the starter of the 50-liter home. In fact what happened is under that looming threat of the day zero the day where there's no water of the tap at all, Cape Tonians were asked to brutally constrain the consumption of water from 150 say to about 50 liters per day per person. What we did is we went onto the ground and lived the life of people in Cape Town to see what's life about at 50 liters per day per person when there's no innovation and life is not real. Life is of sacrifice and even frankly health hazards and when we came back and looked at the water usage around the world where it goes as high as 500 liters per day per person in fact my shower in the morning a 10 minute shower in the morning can go up to 100 liters just was first 10 minutes in the morning so that's that's what inspired the ambition what if what if we could make homes of tomorrow that run at 50 liters per day per person but feel like 500 liters and that opens a new hurry of innovation around water reuse and how we can bring water use inside the homes at every point of use in the in the homes and that's what PNG has a lot to do. Actually I talked about my showers but do you know that before we clean your hair we clean the water that cleans your hair before we clean the dishes we clean the water that cleans the dishes before we clean the laundry we clean the water that cleans the laundry so what about cleaning the water after what about creating you know circularity in the water reuse in the home so that's the that's the big ambitions and of course we have two partners with partners that create new appliances infrastructures inside and outside the home so we can ultimately decentralize and modularize water and water use and reuse in the homes as as burrow streams so to to deliver the 50th home vision we've in fact gathered a coalition called the 50th home coalition over the entire value chain of water and that comprises partners like quarter and an Electrolux for bathroom and laundry and dish appliances partners like NG and Suez on utilities as well as the World Economic Forum the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Water Resource Groups 2030 it's really important we create that ecosystem of partnership to deliver the dream wow you know that I've worked at very very large water utilities right at a very different scale so your decentralization approach is inspiring because in many ways that's really the future is is addressing water at the source of use you know at the point of views by the customer and and and the 50 liter home really takes it there rose rose Kagawa she is an industrial chemist she has a PhD from UNESCO IHE in in environmental resources rose is is a director at at the water utility serving all of Uganda is the national water and sewerage corporation she's a scientist and and and she really has nearly 30 years of experience serving serving her customers in Uganda and and shaping the water sector in Uganda rose is an IWA board member and she has served as the second president of the scientific and technical council of the African Water Association rose has received many awards in in water especially leadership as a woman and rose has inspiring relatives her mother was a the first head teacher in Uganda she has an aunt who was a mayor so rose could you combine your thoughts and describe what you perceive of France's 50 liter vision coming from a large water utility and how a large water utility could help with that vision as well as your thoughts on the value system of water in Uganda and the role of women in water in Uganda some of all of that in in your vision associated with innovation thank you very much Sudeer and hello to everybody I like the idea of France trying to push the per capita consumption down to 50 liters of course coming from a developing country we could say that is the norm actually that is luxury and we have many areas where the per capita consumption is much less than that but coming from a utility the NWSC which is the utility that serves Uganda currently in 258 cities and towns is a government per estate or monopoly and therefore serving what would call more of the urban centers and this has been the situation for us with the challenge of trying to ensure that we serve our customers are based of about 10 million people which is growing which is about a quote of the population of the country and so the others receive through a different system we basically abstract surface water and groundwater usage is beginning to increase over the years especially in the smaller towns that are linked to some of the rural growth centers in terms of service coverage and the access in the last five years we've bumped that up from about water means extension of 80 kilometers per year to now 2500 kilometers per year so the growth to the 258 towns has happened in the last five years so you can see a rapid jump to try and improve access within the country in doing that we've had to more or less aggressively reach out to customers so it's not just about supply and also look at the demand so try to balance between supply and demand and bring the customers on board through a very rigorous way of service delivery we have a range so we are looking from the more elite to the actually poorer customers and we've tried to do this through engaging constant engagement and getting to the customer at the level that they are at and this brings about quite a bit of innovation because we have involved the customers in terms of spreading our gospel for expansion we reach out to them and have one on one we try to adopt all the current measures of you know social media the the phones which are very trendy and common practice in Africa you may be surprised almost every home has a phone or people have two or three phones so try to set up these WhatsApp groups in terms of where we are making the extensions where people need to come to involve the women in service delivery through our public stand posts and get them managing these facilities themselves because we know that the women are the most needed in terms of of water and try to have constant interaction go out right out into their mosques into the schools into the churches into the markets and be able to advocate for you know safe portable water that is piped and get that message out to them together with the COVID pandemic we've had to also pump up the issues of sanitation and be able to take water points out to people so that they can have access you know to water that is available in terms of the costs which is always you know like a hindrance we've looked at our costs for water and our tariff is not a full cost recovery because of the spread around the country we are able to have the economies of scale through cross subsidies the bigger cities subsidizing the smaller towns and you are able to offer a service that is the same irrespective of where you are in terms of the costs when we look at the proper tariff we brought that down to about 30 cents of a dollar per cubic meter and then the domestic one is about one dollar and I hasten to mention that we have tax on top of that the VAT is added on top of that we have however have brought out the message to our consumers that this water is not because of the value people tend to think maybe it's expensive but it's not so we've tried to to compare to the basic things that people need I mean if you go out in Uganda it means 20 liters which is a jerican the common yellow thing you find in most African cities countries villages is at 25 Uganda shillings which cannot even buy you a sweet or a toffee and we try to compare this with other things that people are consuming the mineral water bottle that is people think yeah that's the safest water to drink um that that would cost you about you know 50 jericans of water and then the beer if you go to buy a beer at the end of that day you will only for one cubic meter of water you only drink a third of a bottle so we've tried to bring these costs down to the level that everybody can understand and know that water has is valuable it has a value you cannot replace it and it is actually affordable so as we go on our extensive drive for trying to enhance and meet the STGs and work towards that we're able to show people that actually they can afford this water and with that we've seen the customer base grow and more and more people want to connect and then serve the greater population which is the poorer people through the expansive public standposts and also having centers where people can actually get water in less than 200 meters it's still there's still a lot to be done but we feel yes we are making progress and this is something that can be replicated in other developing countries thank you wow thanks rose that was outstanding work being done at the national water corporation Uganda it's inspiring the economy and the scale that you've achieved at your water utility and really convincing your customers on the value of water just just outstanding you know anti i want to describe your achievements a little bit and perhaps you could take a little crack at that value aspect given you work for a large chemical company a chimera that that serves such large water utilities like the national water and sewerage corporation anti you you have a phd in industrial engineering you're worked as a research scientist a consultant but in the last 10 years you've been with chimera and and chimera you know even myself growing up in both india and north america and the united states we all know chimera as as as a chemical company that serves the water sector very well really crucial aspect of the water cycle in the treatment process chimera has continued to provide innovative chemical solutions but but you are passionate about chemistry i i almost read your resume and i thought you describe yourself as better living through chemistry can you can you describe a little bit about the value of water and and chemistry that chemistry vision that you have as as we move forward with the change yes sure uh yeah i mean actually i'm more passionate about water than chemistry chemistry is just one very practical way to to provide clean drinking water and and sanitization and an important piece in the puzzle you know the but but kind of really regarding the the water kind of that's for the business i'm running that's that's the key use segment or customer segment and all the water intensive industries in other kind of applications and and and we for instance recently published a uh a scenario report which which we kind of did not buy kind of interviewing our chimera people but really going out there and interviewing people different people from the industry different segments of industry academia so forth try to really understand kind of as we've been talking so long about the kind of water afternoon oil or kind of a potential water conflicts and so forth so so what are the kind of potential scenarios of of what the water management in the world could look like in uh 2040 so really long-term vision regarding how the water management and how we as industry as humanity actually how we will be solving the uh water related problems and issues we have in in the in the big picture and that report basically then kind of boiled down to four different uh scenarios none of them will happen as such of course they're just scenarios looking forward trying to imagine what's possible what the possible future could look like and they're all kind of a little bit black and white in a sense that the whole idea is to have a difference between these scenarios so they're kind of uh exaggerated but but kind of those four scenarios first of them is is kind of labeled water conflicts and and resource games and and that's kind of scenario where we if that would happen the world would kind of uh the kind of nationalism protectionism that we've seen lately in the in the world around us would be intensifying and it it really would kind of boil down to different kinds of national and global conflicts of water that's quite pessimistic scenario then there's another scenario which really relates back to what we saw in the uh brave blue word film by Paul so that's labeled cities and corporations lead water so that's really this decentralized model where basically it's not so much the big national governments that will be kind of showing us the way but it's the small entrepreneurs uh medium and large corporations and the cities and municipalities where basically via this uh local innovation and new innovative ideas being spread our spread or spread around we can solve the water water problems then the third scenario is called data and platform driven water so that's really taking a stance of this digitalization that we see around us and and kind of the different kind of digital platforms playing a bigger and bigger role in terms of solving also the water related problems and and then we have the last one which is about circularity and regulated water where basically then the governments would have a bigger role there and it would be kind of highly regulated usage and reuse it of water which would be solving this global water issue now as I say none of these will be the actual future it will be some kind of a combination probably of these factors but it's inspiring to think kind of you know what may be happening in the world and of course we have the business interest to try to understand you know what would these scenarios if they realize mean to our business but I think it's more important from the global kind of the whole humanity's perspective to understand what will happen and how will we be because I believe I truly believe that we will be able to solve these issues and problems but but basically there are several different paths and that's what's interesting to try to understand and kind of when I think about this I think there's there's a lot of issues and problems in different corners of the world with water but but I think for me personally my personal opinion is that it's basically on our way to 24 there's there's two major challenges that the world has and one is what Rose just talked about so how can we provide clean water and sanitation in the developing world as the economies keep growing and the population even keeps growing and then the other one is the aging water infrastructure in the developed world and what will happen to that and how it will be replaced and kind of all that and and for both of these the common nominator as you mentioned in the intro and it's really kind of what's interesting to hear here Rose talking about how they have tackled the value of water question because I think this has been one of the biggest obstacles for the fast dissemination of innovation into water related industries it's been the kind of disconnection between the true value of water and the cost and and basically as consumers in the western and in developed world like how many of us really even know what the cupid leader of water costs us when we get it piped and and basically uh and and and then we think about the how how essentially it is for life and how really our lifestyle depends on on having and access to pipe clean water we just don't understand it and that I think that's one of the major inhibiting factors uh as if there is no real money in the game then uh also the business it's not about inventing something new but really innovating so that it can become a commercial success that's also dampened and and inhibited so so that's that's the issue there and of course then if you look at the developing world then then basically uh how can these developing countries afford to build uh that infrastructure in the first place and then people as rose was very very kind of uh clearly highlighting this concept that that basically uh even if the cost of water for a consumer would be low it is still a big portion of the daily income and that's also kind of part of this uh cost value dilemma uh there so for me the the value of water is is the key crucial point that we somehow need to solve and uh you know our stars in it is that that that we know that chemistry will is playing and will play a key role as it is one of the easiest cheapest safest ways to uh clean wastewater and clean drinking waters but of course it works together with other technologies there but but really again once again the value of water and connection to cost and kind of the true value not the monetary value but the value to our society is it's that's that's the key question that I think we need to solve thank thanks auntie that that's very thought-provoking um I want to switch to Yati uh I've known Yati for many years she was on the board of IWA in those days she was a young water professional I believe she was one of the first group of young water professional uh almost a decade ago uh at IWA um Yati has been a a Fulbright scholar as well as a guest scholar at Kyoto University in uh in Japan um very accomplished uh Yati uh uh uh you're right now a professor at uh in in Malaysia at the uh university technology Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur uh what is your perspective uh as an educator and as as as a woman on on on the role of water to to its end right uh what was the means to uh health prosperity equity uh what is your thoughts on how innovation can play a role in all of that in the context of of water thank you so they're very happy to be on this panel and uh based on the film um Liam Neeson said that it's a great film that everybody must see it um every school and every college must see it so I totally you know this statement totally echoes with uh the brave rural and then water education I find is very important simply because everything that we have said by the panels uh truly supported by capacity building and uh higher education is the institution that helps in supporting this notion uh water education must go beyond teaching of hydrological sciences water cycle or circular economy the work include community education whereby people are more engaged in terms of uh knowledge transfer between universities and the industries so all the things and the points that have been said by camera and then by proctor and gamble for example and then relating that to the education and development of capacity building for future water leaders in developing countries for example we take uh exemplary um uh cases and studies by the developed countries as to how might we improve and how might we develop in terms of transforming the water sector uh and I think in terms of uh equity agenda and health uh water is actually uh the the key of uh economic currency for the future as Paul mentioned earlier on that people may fight um for water rather than money uh and this is absolutely true for the future because that is the current the currency for health and wealth uh I think I stopped there uh for the moment so there wow well said uh uh you know water being the currency that's uh uh that's that's where things really lie um for the future Paul could you perhaps summarize uh uh and and close out for us uh your your thoughts on how we can inspire change for the future um uh I know there's there's a lot said already in the film but uh but uh could you just give us a minute or two on what what your what your what your future thoughts are and how we should proceed I like I think just realizing that it's it's complex and it it does involve multiple people coming together from a technology chemistry perspective even rethinking fundamentally how the home may work in the future to looking at the equity equity issues around water and I think that's where coming up with tire structures that are sensitive to the fact that there are portions of society that are unable to repay the cost despite the value but but I believe we can that's the thing and I think that you see examples like that in Uganda um you see examples education this outreach and bridging people if people learn in academia and I think that's one of the lessons that we took from the film was you got to start early in terms of engaging with people but it's never too late at the same time we're excited to continue the that storytelling process and and really look at kind of full circle encompassing all those different elements and I think they were well represented today and thanks to IWA and and so dear for moderating the discussion thanks paul and and thanks to to the panel it's really been very insightful as as insightful as the movie I hope for the audience thank you and and hope you have a great day