 Good afternoon everyone. I'm happy to greet you on our third edition and this time after America's and Africa regional call for Europe to connect all of the young water professionals and also to share experience and some ideas for us as young professionals. My name is Mila. I'm based in Ukraine and I'm a part of a young water professionals steering committee in particular working with events and communication and together with Shatya and Juma, who is from Congo, part of the steering committee, we've been organizing this event. Let me stop shortly on some organizational information. So this event will be recorded and it will be available on demand the platform called IWA Connect Plus. We ask speakers and to be responsible for securing copyrights and permissions for any information that they present or for which they are not legal copyright holders and we want to mention that opinions, hypotheses, conclusions or recommendations contained in the presentations and other materials are the sole responsibility of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the IWA opinion to use chat area for introducing yourself, for posting the questions for our speakers and also you can share your contacts, social media accounts if you would like to connect. Also we'll appreciate if you can mute yourself and keep your camera closed. This is most likely for the participants. Currently for speakers I want them to be speaking for sure. You need to open that and yeah, the shared slides will be shared just from the organized way rather like separately. Today we will have two panels contained of four speakers in first representing Spain, Cyprus, Austria and Kosovo and second panel with France, Czech Republic and Denmark. Just briefly to speak about IWA community. So we are here to connect, engage, recognize and help to have professional development for young people like us under 35 years old who work with different branches of water sector. IWP steering committee, you know what we represent is a kind of governing body of young water professionals who try to provide some recommendations for the secretariat with directions which is maybe better to work with young water professionals or will be more interesting for them to be engaged. And also we are engaged with young country chapters, young water professionals country chapters in organizing also different events. So being young water professionals as we already mentioned you can be a part of steering committee, you can be a part of country chapter, you can be a part of specialist group and part of different conferences or events in the part of participation or even organization. Here you can see the map with all of the chapters what we currently have and even though several countries joined us within 2023 and I think it's really great to have us spread. Just few words about recent online engagements for chapters, it has been like get-together, it's regional call, global coordination calls and webinars where we've been collaborating with different chapters and the chapters were also proposing like their own ideas whatever they may would like to work on and to share with other audience. Also we have several platforms like Connect Plus, Microsoft channels for the chapters, different channels on different social medias and of course official communication through like emails and websites. And yeah just to inform you that like very soon the nomination for a new steering committee of young water professionals will be open so keep an eye on that and we'll be happy to have new people on the on the board and yeah I think I will stop on this briefly and we'll move to specific experiences from the chapter. So let me introduce our first speaker, it's Azir Elgozabal, he represents a young water professional Spain chapter and he is represented international relations and sustainability department at this chapter. Also his research analyst at Trucking Innovation focused on the relationship between water, education, governance systems and different industry stakeholders. So Azir, we'll be happy to hear from you, the floor is yours. Well thank you everyone, thank you for the opportunity. Puxia Alema, that is my companion, she could come to the meeting so I'm here lately as well and we want to talk about the the network of the Spain chapter as Yudmila mentioned. I'm currently in the department of international relationships and sustainability working among all my companions to strengthen the network and to improve the network properly as we can try the next slide please. I don't know if that, thank you. Well beginning from the bottom we could talk about the IWA, the IWA as an international association or organization that brings all the professionals and organizations together to talk about and fight about all the problems and challenges in the water sector. Being the IWA, one of the most constitutions or most influential constitution in the water sector, oh you could go back please. And from that point on here in Spain the IAAAEIS, the Spanish Association for Water Transplantation, being one of the government members in Spain, promote the creation of the Young Water Professional Chapter in 2015 with the aim and objective of contributing to the present and the future of the water sector here in Spain. And from that point on we next slide please. From that point on we start to create collaborations for a different kind of collaboration. At this case we're gonna we're gonna talk about the international collaborations. Everything began in 2018 with the first collaboration with the UK and Spain chapters where we were talking about the water in Spain. It was the first event, it was first webinars, so it was one of the most iconic for us. After that in 2021 we continue the international collaborations with the Young Water Professionals Chapter of Germany with an online event called the Building Bridges, trying to strengthen the both parties as well. And nearby the most recent it was the recent collaboration. It was in the 6 IWA ECO STP conference here in Girona Spain in 2023 where we collaborate as a co-chair with Italy, with Italy, Denmark and Spain as well as a co-chairs of the of the event. And the next slide please. And at the same time we are trying to reach different kind of collaborations. For example in the Spanish language we discovered that we need to find out a more we need to develop a more content and find out new solutions for the sector as well because we have pretty amazing content and solutions and technologies and research in English but in Spain we need to develop a more content for that as well. And we start the initiative of Iber-American Chapter webinars last year as well in 2023 where we bring all the Latin American chapter as well to to talk about different subjects related to the water sector. We began in March with the first webinar it was called the subject was Women's Empowerment in the Water Sector and which is quite amazing because it was the first one as well. After that in June we continued with the methodologies for efficiency in water distribution networks and we closed the last year in November, sorry about the day, with the present and future situation of water footprint. In all these webinars we try to to reach different experience, different hosts that bring their solutions and their situation of their realities that might help in different realities. For example a solution that we apply in Spain could work in Mexico and solutions from Mexico could work in Argentina, from Argentina to Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia so we're trying to create a network, know new people, new solutions and incentivize this kind of initiatives. The next slide please. Yes, I don't know if from this point we for future collaborations we're trying to create more Iber-American webinars for this year activities, any kind of activities that might help to bring us together national and international collaborations as well so we're happy to hear options, proposals, anything that we might help or be part of and the main event that as we know of this year is the European Young Water Professional Conference in June, at mid-June so we're pretty excited to be part of and to help to be involved in this in this conference. In the next slide please. And in the middle of all these activities what kind of activities we do, the little activities that bring us together to know each other, to create new opportunities, synergies, we always trying to create the networking about sport events, water meetings, we bring all the young water professionals together, divulgation and awareness of different events nearby the main cities for example Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao, Barcelona and at the same time international participation we could learn about different realities and perspectives and as I said networking and collaborations could be easier at happy hour after office, go to hiking to the mountain with a group of people everything that could might help to bring all of us together know each other and know about the sector and empower the young water professionals. The next slide please. Close in the last year that was the main event here in Spain we have the opportunity to create and develop the first hackathon that it was called Young Water Hack where we're talking about the sustainable water use as a key element against the in the fight against the climate crisis. In this case we try to we propose three challenges for doctoral master degrees and professional formation students where we have a participation of almost 50 people dividing smaller working groups to create different solutions for the water sector that at the end of the event the solutions were quite innovative and interesting because it is completely different that we know from the enterprises organization of our academic sector because they have the wide open tools and know of their of their know of different doctoral master experience so the the result was quite amazing but the best result it was that we created networking between students, young water professionals, sponsors and stakeholders so the the great outcome was the strength of the network as well and the power of the of the new new young water professionals. The next slide please. And giving a little rewind about the last main conference that we have we started in 2017 in Bebau with the first Young Water Professional Conference after that we continued in 2019 in Madrid with the second Young Water Professional Conference and the most recent it was in Valencia in 2022 that it was quite good because it was the real launch after all the pandemic situation where we all been together and reconnect and move forward with the next chapter of the of the network and the next slide please. And the main event here in Spain that it will be in October is the this year Young Water Professional Conference that it will be in Bilbao we're getting there we are organizing and preparing everything so we are completely welcome to assist to be part of this event we are completely free to hear new ideas to collaborate so above all the next slide please thank you for your attention and we're completely open minded about anything any idea that we might help or we could hear thank you for the opportunity and then or your time to be part of this reunion. Thank you for sharing the Spanish experience and we will move to our our next speaker Maria Krzysztofie she is a vice chair of IWA keepers chapter and also a water systems engineer in the British forces keepers working with CMC G. Lee. She her focus is more to on updating and on keeping of various water infrastructures including the reservoirs aquifers management reverse osmosis process and water treatment wastewater treatment plants so Maria please you are the vice chairs. Hello thank you for the introduction so thank you for the opportunity also today I would like to tell you that we will be speaking in regards to the Cyprus Young Water Professionals the organizational journey and how that has progressed in Cyprus what we will be looking at is how we operate the research activities field activities online activities and then you reach out activities we have had until now I will be going through the young water can you please go back a slide so I will be looking at the young water professional Cyprus activities in 2023 future activities along with challenges and evaluating the opportunities or that we've had with the IWA so unfortunately I apologize for the slides it's not what we initially intended to present however due to some technical difficulties you won't be seeing many slides from us today but I will be talking mostly so in terms of the activities we've had in 2023 some that we did undertake was the visit site visit at the wastewater treatment plant in Larnaca at the sewage and drainage port we also had a publication of an article with the name of water supply groundwater over exploitation and water resources management in Cyprus which was written by one of our members we also had a unique opportunity to participate at the European researchers night in our capital in Nicosia and the theme that we presented was exploring the secrets of clean water it was very interesting and some of the team members were able to present how water is filtered and cleaned and it was presented to young children the main aim was to increase excitement from the young age with the aim of more people wanting to become young water professionals in their careers and we also participated at the sixth general assembly of the Cyprus Water Association where we also presented our progress and how we have what we have achieved within the year what small we've also had activities in collaboration with the international water association with the young water professionals and we have contributed to the IWA YWP newsletter and we've also had the opportunity to participate in various online workshops and regional courts this year for the year of 2024 we have hopes to organise two more site visits specifically the Hangelo Stam so it's a new construction in Cyprus where we are aiming to take young engineers or prospective engineers within the water sector that would like to learn more and enlarge on their knowledge basis we've also we are also planning to visit a desalination plant in Baphos and some flood measures that have taken place specifically the installation of gabions within the British forces we are also hoping to undertake some national conferences within Cyprus which will be hopefully all of the members of the IWA young water professionals will be invited regarding climate change desalination water quality and drinking networks reduction of non-revenue water we would also like to do an in-house workshop regarding pumps for water and wastewater networks along with some other articles and interview of key people within the water sectors of Cyprus if you could change the slide please so the main name of what we are trying to do and how we're trying to organise our chapter is through having the opportunity for younger people to be able to network with seniors related to the water sector in Cyprus we are able to use them as mentors and they are able to guide us we are able to learn from their mistakes and get an insight of any previous and current situations relating to water related topics in Cyprus and any difficulties they have encountered and we're also lucky enough that our members are exposed to all factors of the water related sector and we are able to have a large phasm of activity so that allows people to become more familiar with the aspects that they may have not used or be familiar with from their careers or their education until now if you could change the slide please nonetheless we do have difficulties as well and challenges within the chapter unfortunately we are very small chapter and being a small chapter suggests that we do not have a budget a big enough budget for international activities such as participating at conferences hosted by the young water professionals by AIWA the water sector is also not that popular in Cyprus it's a very niche environment so it is difficult to build a professional career in the water sector furthermore local interests can be very limited and this may be a challenge for us but in terms of attracting and retaining new members within the organization and also garnering support for various chapter initiatives we are a bit concerned about our long-term sustainability of the chapter and member fluctuation however we are hopeful that our own connections as well as connections with the local universities will allow people to become more interested and join the chapter however it is one of our concerns slide please nonetheless even though there are challenges we are grateful of being part of the international water association chapter of the young water professionals because it provides a lot of advantages which is participating in regional calls and allowing us to expand our horizons and see possibilities that we may have not used in Cyprus furthermore it's a networking opportunity to meet all of you lovely people and we may also have the opportunity to attract people with new methods that are used in different chapters and excuse me we are hoping to access resources provided by the international water association and enhance the visibility of individuals and organizations within the water community of Cyprus provide training opportunities by workshops and seminars to expand our horizons the only thing which we can say is a disadvantage is that we would like to increase our to increase having support in terms of participation from the other IWA chapters and we're hoping this is an open invitation that whenever we do host any please come join us and we are more than happy to learn from you as well as maybe tell you how we work and how our environment works as well I would like to thank you for your time I don't believe there's any more slides please come connect with us you can if you if you google the Cyprus water association you will find a website which has an affiliation link towards us the Cyprus the Cyprus young water professionals we've also got a facebook account a linked and the linked in account and of course you can also find us in IWA connect plus thank you for your time thank you Maria for sharing your achievements and challenges and also I would confirm that collaboration is a key to like getting some new experience new knowledge and skills so I'm also I think it will be great if there will be more collaboration within European chapters and also within all continents and we will be moving to our next speaker from Austria it's Igor Lukatina he's an environmental and civil engineer with a degree from Boko University in Vienna he also specializing in technological innovation at the intersection of water energy and nature based solutions he leads the solar desinillation greenhouse project at Alkemienova and founded Cosmo Tykes I think Igor will share more and more about himself and the chapter well thank you Ludmila the introduction was quite good so I am intrapreneurally active here in Vienna I founded my own startup and as a researcher and developer in a company as you can see Vienna this the background is actually Vienna we have our hubs our technological advancements are on a quite high level so if you are looking for some exchange in sort of a professional level and a research level let us know in the end I will show you how you can get in contact with us you can switch to the next one so it's quite a contrary picture to the picture before I'm showing this to you because we when this is a project basically in Tyrol in the middle of the Alps of Austria where we are building a pump energy storage facility basically it's a dam where we the Austrian government for the Green Deal plan is using the dam to hold back water and generate it by either running it through turbines or saving the energy by pumping it up it's a quite common thing to do in Austria but what is not common about this one is the size of this project this is basically a rendering and the construction is happening Ludmila on the next slide we can see the construction and as young water professionals we couldn't miss the chance to get an impression of what's really going on there and the size and the logistics and everything that's going in the back process but also on the front it's my second favorite trip because only because I wasn't there so I couldn't go there I wasn't in Austria and everybody else was quite impressed once it is finished it can generate more than 100 megawatt by turbines and also the pumps are a little bit over 100 megawatt so it's it's a rather controversial project if you're into it read about it it is the biggest earth moving project in Europe up to now so just to another scales or from our side from the young water professionals these are actual numbers we are about 80 members which roughly you can say 20 of us approximately 15 depends on what activity we do are really active so we meet it we meet up each every every month at least and besides our activities we always count about 10 people that are that are very active the core team is the picture there without the dog the dog is not very proactive and from the preceding we are two women and two men having sort of a equilibrium there most of us are based in Vienna we have one um presidium member martin he's from Tyrell where we went to the excursion which is sometimes difficult to coordinate but um we are happy to have him as he's from a part that is underrepresented in Austria from the from the young water professional side and we are figuring it out how to you know engage the other side the western side of uh austria with us please let's see the next slide all right so this is basically an overview what we usually do and especially 2020 the year that passed the first one stammtische and punch trinken so this is um our way of of get togethers it's a quite traditional form stammtische means we get together every month on a table that we reserve and this is a traditional way of exchanging a lot of things in austria happen on a stammtische like political discussions and stuff so we kind of like to keep it traditional and punch trinken is mulled wine that happens around christmas every every year and what we enjoyed this time was the club Eva basically was there get together from the international water association of austria also happens once a year and we led quite some topics there we did a survey on how how the work environment is for young water professionals and also asked the the older generations what they think about it and also had a discussion around on a politically let's say hot topic from the EU reuse policy that austria opted out so we were curious why and we did a discussion round with more tables we organized that and had a very very nice exchange because we can ask bald questions we can go in with a curious mindset and all the generations they are from they have a lot of experience but they are very i would say like very open and very easy to work with so we enjoyed that club quite quite a lot also the work congress was here we participated there and other field trips where we usually go to water treatment plants because such things as in cypress desalination plants we don't have them but what we do work in austria a lot are also nature based solutions and this is something to be looking forward to participate two more yes that's 2023 yeah this is our lovely little website it's it does the job so basically you can contact us from there i also wanted to show on the next slide our head of the domestic water station of austria these are the ones that were participants in the club many more but i just want to show you so next time maybe you're somewhere you know the faces and you know they are from austria very easy to to to talk to very open and i enjoy also working with them on the next slide and this is a again how you can reach out to us and why you should reach out to us if you go in the next slide we are also preparing or how would i put best we have a whole mentoring program for austrian members basically where they can choose from a pool of experts and we match them and they want to start to engage in a different professional career or they need some support they want to grow personally or just as a new step towards a more professional manner of working inside of the water sector and i think it would be also something as we are here in this international call to have you if you need some sort of assistance we can also talk to their mentors talk to somebody who would be able to assist you in some sort of exchange if you are looking towards coming to austria and working here as a professional be it on a university level or also just as a in a in a company um us from the young water professionals me especially i can help you if you need something to sort out with the visa i know we are mainly europeans here so that won't be an issue but if you know somebody um visa can be very difficult and struggling to get and just take advantage of of our network basically and if you really want to go deep into it we might talk about some mentoring program us for example i enjoyed a mentoring program um i heard that a lot of people have also enjoyed it a lot and it's an easy way to connect with another more experienced generation above us yeah i think that's more or less it this is us us for um thank you for your attention just reach out to me or young water professionals in general these are the emails and yeah let's have an open discussion whatever you need yes eager thank you very much for your presentation as well i believe mentorship is also quite important for young professionals and yeah that that you are sharing this opportunity for other people even outside of europe that's really great and i believe some people who are on the call should uh should should contact you and use this opportunity yes thank you uh now we are moving to our next speaker uh it will be she's an environmental engineer working as a teaching assistant at the faculty of civil engineering university of pristina has on pristina with a background in environmental management systems impact assessments and water resources management um yes i think maybe we'll speak up about all of her activities more yes thank you very much mila uh hi everyone today i just want to give you an overview of our chapters so that you can see the challenges we face the activities we've undertaken and the plans we have for the future if we could move ahead so while as a chapter we are relatively new to iwa we only joined last year however we've been established for about 10 years now since 2013 and we first started under the umbrella of the association of water and wastewater works here in kosovo and currently we number 43 members as i believe all other young water professional um chapters in the whole world we aim to empower and mobilize and build skills share knowledge and expertise um among our own members young water professionals in kosovo but also uh to any other stakeholders that are relevant in the water and environmental sector and as this uh is a very challenging time for our country when it comes to the water sector if you can move to the next slide please it is a very challenging time we have we are facing challenges in infrastructure water infrastructure we have a lot of physical water stress and of course mismanagement mismanagement of water resources with our biggest issue being the brain drain what we call the massive um migration of youth and young water professionals to other countries it is a very vital time for the young water professional chapters to be very active in the community so i want to show you some of the achievements and activities and some of our day-to-day work so far um there is the program the integrated water resource management program in kosovo it's a 12-year program funded by the swiss development and cooperation office here and it has multiple components it has the academic component and industry and the ngos and of course the youth empowerment and all of that and the young water professionals are a part of that program so with a lot of support from uh from the swiss office and the scott consulting we've managed to secure a few grants so that we can develop different projects that are very very useful for the water sector one of those being uh the web application we've developed we and by we i mean we as young water professionals chapter and this web application is going to be used for monitoring and managing water resources and is going to be exclusively used by the the country's regional water companies and overseen by the water regular regulatory office here in addition to that our chapter is quite active in disseminating information and of course raising awareness of the of the water and the environmental sector because i i believe and we believe that this is a very very sensitive thing it's a very important thing in kosovo right now so we have two fun little activities the first one is the fun fact friday where every friday our team puts out and whether through social media or newsletters different water related facts a lot of them related to kosovo but it's not um it's not just for our country it's for the overall world and of course the next one is water wednesday where we explore different insights into water management and conversation and conservation in kosovo including legislations and regulations and all of that and in addition to all of this next slide please we've also partnered up with the engineering specifically and we offer different pieces of training for our members but also for other people we host activities for the world water day celebrations workshops and open lectures where we invite keynote speakers from all over the world to give very important information not just to our members but also to students and to a wider network of stakeholders and all of this is made possible through our multiple partnerships and collaborations that we have and some of these we will see in the next slide one of those is actually with the young water um professionals chapter in Czech Republic we have a memorandum of understanding with them and we had a chance earlier last year to have a visit in prok at the wastewater treatment plants supported of course by the integrated water resource management program here in kosovo um similarly to that we have a partnership with the young water professionals chapter in north macedonia and we've also had a chance to hold a workshop there to exchange our experience on how to make our chapter bigger and how to make it more um stable and sustainable and all of that and of course we have agreements with universities in kosovo with water utilities in the country in the region and even beyond these are two of the very very most important activities we've we've held the first one is the Balkans during conference it's organized every year is a joint conference between Albania and Kosovo and the young water professionals are always very active in organizing and participating in it last year and the year before that we had the chance to also host a forum that was specifically for the young water professionals as part of the conference so that we can showcase the challenges that that we face in the water and sewer services the absence of the newer generations and of course emphasizing our needs for innovative solutions and of course guidance of young professionals and the second one was the participation in the 2023 danube water conference held in Vienna it was a collection of 150 representatives from the danube water regions water sector to address current and emerging challenges and we had the pleasure of hosting nine young water professionals members from kosovo actively engaged in panels and we had a chance to present of course our activities our needs and the challenges and to get feedback from all of those representatives that were there next slide please and as I said we are relatively new to IWA but we've already seen benefits of being part of this and one of those benefits would be a call such as the one today we get to have more collaboration with different chapters we get to meet other people from different chapters of course gain a lot of experience and I believe it's a good foundation so that we can develop further on professionally and personally and of course create a very sustainable environment and further on as as the future future goals or future steps of our chapter if you could go to the next slide please we already hold several have held several workshops and seminars of course we are applying for grants we are networking and the aim of all of this is to equip our young water professionals with skills with tools and knowledge so that they can achieve as much as they can professionally in the field but not only that so they they can also contribute as much as possible to the water sector which is in dire need currently during this time in Kosovo and of course the first first steps of that have begun but we also aim to to establish a water sector information platform because currently we are in a lot of need for information for for awareness raising we want to increase capacity so that we can gain more members of even more diverse backgrounds and of course increase in a number of cooperation agreements with companies with institutions with other chapters with higher education institutions and of course apply for more grants and projects from other developments and I believe as young water professionals and I think this is true for all the chapters we bring a lot to the table there's a lot we have to give but we also need a lot of guidance and I believe if all the chapters cooperate we could definitely provide a very very useful skill set and a lot of useful knowledge that could benefit even generations further to come thank you very much for your attention thank you there I think being a young chapter you guys are pretty much productive and yeah very much things you have to share so yeah thank you for that and I would like to encourage participants to share their questions in the chat box and maybe the speakers can try to respond also because so we a bit moving let's say slower so maybe we can secure some time in the end for more questions but meanwhile I would like to ask if you guys can respond some questions in the chat and we will be moving to the next speaker from France I'm happy to introduce Catalina Suarez she's a PhD student at the University of Paul and the Adore region she's working in collaboration with Total Energies her research focus is on microplastic contamination related to the anaerobic digestion processes of BMS realized Catalina we're happy to thank you yes thank you so much for having us so next slide please so I'm here to represent the newly created young water professional chapter in France similar to the Spanish chapter the French chapter was part of a French association called the ASTIC which is the French Association of Water and Waste Professionals the chapter is like I said in new so the first contact was in June, July of 2022 we had a first meeting in September of 2022 and finally the creation of the chapter was last year in July and we expect to hold our first webinar in February of 2024 next slide please so our chapter is composed of 11 members currently we have a parody in men and women our 11 members work in different waste management in the waste management and water sector in both public research and a private company if you are interested in knowing more about our members you can follow the QR code that you see in the slide next slide please so our main our main hope is to contribute to the national water and waste agenda in France which is already very rich as many of you might know there are many renowned French research centers such as NRAI and work leading companies in the water sector sector as Deolian said there is also the existence of the existence of the French Association of Water and Waste Management Professionals and there is a very developed waste and water and waste sector however under this context we consider that there is a challenge in identifying and discussing the opportunity sector there is a need of bringing the industry academia and decision makers closer together and we also need to foster working experience experiences and to share the knowledge between all of these different all of these different participants in the waste of water sector in France so our objectives and activities are considered in two main topics the first one is a professional network where we aim to create networking mentorship and to share a job opportunity and the second topic would be technical skills where we would share knowledge around the technical the technical areas of water management the transdisciplinary in water and waste the waste sectors and to create this interaction between the industry and academia so these objectives will we aim to achieve them by national networking events by proposing workshops both in the national and international congresses as part of the IWA but also as part of the ASTI Association also to share results and technical feedback in webinars to organize mentorship programs with senior professionals and what we obviously relay in all the IWA events such as this one both in the French national level and international level and we also aim to contribute to the IWA and to the ASTI newsletters next slide please slide before thank you so as a new chapter we don't have much to present concerning our experience but 2024 will be our first complete year and we hope to start with our events the first event is the ASTI Congress that will take place in June of 2024 where we have a kickoff workshop where we are going to talk about the international cooperation in the field of water management and what the young water professional scroll is in this sector the second activity would be the young water professional or peer encounters that will take a part in in Denmark and where some of our members will be present and we are preparing our first webinar which we hope to be hosting in February around February or March of this year so yes that's the the end of our presentation if you have any questions or mostly feedback advice or anything we say we take them I will leave in the chat our email and our contact information we would love to collaborate with other European and also international chapters and as a new young water professional chapter it's very important for us to start with our connections and to collaborate and learn from your experiences thank you for your time thank you Catalina and yeah you started really great initiatives and I'm wishing you good luck with all of those we will be moving forward next speaker it will be young water professional specifically vice chair chairman of young water professionals of Czech Republic Jakub Sohor he's also a professionally focused on small water supply systems and their safety and supporting the education of new water professionals Jakub you're welcome to share the experience of young water professionals Czech Republic thanks for introducing me hi all I wish you a nice afternoon as it was said my name is Jakub Sohor and I want to introduce you briefly the challenges and the opportunities which we have as a members of young water professionals of a Czech Republic so please next slide just briefly about the our chapter we was founded in 2015 2016 in 2015 we have the first idea of founding this chapter and a year after in 2016 we established it officially and in 2019 which means that we have five year anniversary this year we were officially recognized by the National Water Association at this time we have roughly 60 members thanks to a very good social media impact in last a couple of months we have increased of members from let's say 50 to 60 and nowadays we have a steering committee with a five member of this steering committee our biggest project or event which we organize so that is a conference which is called Mladá vode Vrhymele which means in Czech young water strong deep and it is really a conference for a Czech not only for a young water professionals but for a young people in a water sector overall next slide please and in this slide I would like to tell you something about the biggest challenge which we have not only as a young water professionals Czech Republic but even as a Czech water sector because there is a lack of attractiveness of our water sector there is aging the workforce in the water sector we have less interest in studying the water sector study programs that means that year by year the amount of students are decreasing and the other problem is that because of the privatization of the water sector we have really atomization of the water management infrastructure which means that we nowadays we had 7 000 of water supply system in the Czech Republic which don't discuss each other the problems so that means that in the Czech Republic we have lack of qualified personnel and we as a young water professionals try to make the situation better and increase the amount of the students of the water sector study programs so on the next slide please we had the first solution let's say or not the solution but something we can do which is the questionnaire which was done in the beginning of the 2023 so we done the online questionnaire with 105 respondents which means twice as much as we have members of our chapter and there were questions about the motivation to study the water sector work benefits opinions on current topics as the new laws from the new laws from the European Union and so on and so on and we try to make some summary to give that it to the companies to know what should have been the great parameters for the job for the young people so for example there were results that the main motivation to study the water is that it's an interesting study program or interesting studies and they want to protect the nature on the other hand the salary was completely uninteresting let's say it's not the reason to study the study programs for the water for the water sector and nowadays we are trying to expand this questionnaire to the other companies like we will try to expand to the Germany, Austria maybe Slovakia and so on to see what is the differences between the Czech students of the water sector and the German or the Austrian next slide please then we have some trainings for the students for example for the international students of Athens program we had the water safety plan training for the imatech students and for participants of a Czech water conference we had the workshop about the sustainability and the carbon footprint and which was the I think the best for the making the water sector more attractive was when we go for the first and the second year students year to the university of chemical technology and we had the discussion with the students about the content of the jobs of the individual positions of the water sector because the students don't know what are they going to do with the for example the master's degree of the water sector next slide please the second let's say solution is a national cooperation with the Czech water association which is the part of the international water association so we had some some presentation on water work Thursday we tried to do regularly the face-to-face network meetings every quarter of a year we had the some ads on a student scientific conference and also we have some cooperation on the organization of bnl water conference of the Czech water association which is the biggest conference and event in the Czech Republic and the last slide please and I have also to mention the international cooperation both of the cooperation was mentioned here before because first is the new water conference where we can be the co-moderators of the discussions and and of course international cooperation with Kosovo young water professionals signing the memorandum of cooperation and understanding and I hope that this international cooperation will develop after because one of our steering committee members was on a conference in Kosovo this month so I think that it's a very promising cooperation and we are very glad that we can have this international cooperation and I hope that it could be developed also with other chapters of young water professionals so if somebody here wants to brainstorm some co-operations we will be glad to discuss it so thank you please only the very last slide which is only the photos of the young water professionals members from the bnl water conference and thank you for your time and your attention and I will be glad if we can brainstorm some some possibility to have international cooperation with the other young water professionals thank you thank you I would like also to add that attracting a soft water sector is not only challenge of Czech Republic I would find it like in different countries it's in particular in Eastern Europe right in Ukraine as well it's a bit an issue but we are the ones who currently representing the sector so we we will try to make it more attractive right okay now we will be moving to our last but not least speaker and Nerea Uri Karainio I'm happy to introduce our chair of young water professionals from Denmark she also holds a PhD in biochemistry by DTU Copenhagen and works as innovation specialist at the Danish Water Utility VCS Denmark Nerea I hope you're ready to share yes thank you thank you for the introduction and thank you for inviting us to be part of this panel today it was really interesting to hear all the other speakers and how we are all very open to collaborate that is one of the best parts of young water professionals I believe that you have access to all the other chapters and so we're of course very much open to collaborate with all of you I'm gonna focus my presentation not so much on our chapter but on the main activity that we are working on that one that takes most of our energy right now without we still have to take care of our members here at home we are so we also have to make sure we fulfill our commitments with all of our stakeholders but I'm gonna talk about the Young Water Professionals European Conference which is the one that requires our most attention right now the Danish chapter is a very old chapter I will say founded in 2014 so this year we turned 10 years old and this is gonna be our 10th conference and a long time ago we decided we wanted to we wanted to try to do something larger and we wanted to to invite people from all the places and I'm so happy that it's becoming a reality this year a little bit more about the chapter we have more than 500 members right now we have a lot of support from the industry with our sponsors that support us over the years we that allows us to organize activities we had past year we had 20 around 20 activities with around 200 attendees in total and yeah now we are working on a different challenge and we're doing that in collaboration with all the chapters I'll count that to you so next let's start with the conference it will take place in Copenhagen the 16th to the 19th of June starts on a Sunday evening where we are already afternoon afternoon evening where we're already preparing super fun activities for everybody to get to know each other right before the conference we all agree in the team organizing the conference that one of the one of the most important things at our conference is the connections that you take with you and that is our mission in our chapter we want to be a connector in the water industry for young people and we're gonna put a lot of focus into that for the conference we want to make sure that of course there will be also technical content and we want people to fare inspired but above everything else we want people to have a chance to get to know each other and bring connections from home yes next the conference takes place in the building from an organization called Danish industry which is an organization that groups together 20 000 companies in Denmark and it has a division focused on water and they will be partly sponsoring the conference it is a beautiful building right in the middle of Copenhagen with a beautiful rooftop and we're very very excited that we're being allowed to to use this space this was also possible because of our main sponsor for the conference which is the Poldu Jensen Foundation the Grunfors Foundation we are we're still working on finalizing our sponsors and we're open to sponsorship so if you work for an organization or in contact with an organization that you think will be interested in in supporting this conference let us know this is the this is the organizing committee we have mostly people from Denmark this will be like our local committee where we are where we have teams working on our on our financials and sponsorships and communication and logistics and trying to find the best activities for attendees to do around Copenhagen and we also have a couple of people from Sweden and Finland and then we have our program committee which is in charge of putting together a program which includes people not only from Denmark but also Sweden, Poland, Italy and Spain and we want to make sure that the program and the content of the conference of course provides people the opportunity to to be inspired but by what Denmark has to offer but we also want to be very inclusive so that the conference will be appealing and interesting for people from all over Europe so we want to make sure that we have as many perspectives covered as possible. Yes next we are in the last day of our submission and our call for call for content so we'll be closing that tomorrow so today is the last day for people to submit abstracts we have created different types of abstracts we're encouraging different type of different type of presentations we're gonna try that the conference is maybe a little bit different than a typical technical conference and we want to make it as engaging and interactive as possible we're super excited we've got a very very good response and we're well over 100 submissions at the moment so we're very very happy and after this we're gonna have our reviewers looking at all of the abstracts and we'll put a program together and we will be opening registration a month from now so in a month you'll be able to start registering for the conference we have place for up to 300 people and of course we hope we will see we'll get as many people to Copenhagen as possible and it will close two weeks before the conference so first of June and you can follow all of this in our in our communication channels following Young Water Professional Denmark also the rest of the chapters are doing a great job by sharing also from their communication channels and of course the IWA official channels so you can stay informed that way we're also in the events side of IWA website and if you're not convinced yet which I hope you will all be and we will all be talking to all the people you know but this conference Copenhagen is a beautiful place to visit in June we're really putting our best effort into making this conference an amazing experience for the people attending and you will not only have technical presentations we also like to do a lot of soft skill development in our in our in our conferences and we'll try to have as much as as much of that as we can and and of course we'll we'll try to make sure that the main goal which is getting people to to connect with each other there will be plenty of opportunities for that and that's our website over there if you want to have more information and otherwise you can you will be will be releasing more information through all the IWA channels and that was it from me thank you Nere I believe was this much effort what you guys putting in this event it should be like really amazing so good luck with that um yeah and I think for now I would like to suggest if anyone have sorry any questions so we can open the floor for questions and if any of participants would like to say this question you are welcome to open your microphone if anyone I was not checking much the the chat box actually sorry guys I will share in the screen. Luzemila was checking the the chat and we don't have questions there but I think that we presented a lot of information yeah so that might be taking like some time to digest everything but we're going to be sharing this presentation online and then of course if any for the participants they have any questions we can follow up and directly then to the speakers. Yeah sure um but I think if if the funding is quite usually a question an issue for young water professionals maybe chapters who have more experience with being more successful in getting some grants or something like that can share their experience I think I remember Blair was saying in her presentation something like that like that maybe she would like to elaborate. Yes of course um from from our experience my personal experience in our chapters experience there are two I would say barriers to to being able to get a grant or get involved in a project the first one would be the technical skills and also the soft skills required to apply for a grant or a project and by that I mean the skills to write a technical proposal to articulate your idea to come up with an idea that is feasible can be implemented and that is attractive for potential investors or grant providers and the second barrier would be I would say sometimes the lack of experience because as we all know especially those who've worked on the on the private sector and have experience on applying for projects and grants the more experience you have the more references you have the easier it is to get even more grants and projects and experiences and that can be very difficult for a young chapter to overcome so what what we would let's say recommend in cases like this is that you begin your initial grants for projects could be as part of a collaboration with someone else within with a company or maybe a university or maybe even another young water professional chapter in your region or even in the same continent or otherwise depends on the grants and the project in case and then you can use that opportunity to gain experience and gain the necessary skills and gain the the knowledge from from the other more experienced partners and you can also use their their starting capital and like their experience to be able to get set project and then after you've gotten those skills and that experience then you can gradually but the goal is to apply for as many as you can to be very active in searching out different grants and opportunities this is very important that everyone every member of the group gets very active in searching out grants and projects and not different opportunities and scholarships but also we as a chapter we've benefited very much from our partnership with the university and with the regional water companies because these two institutions are the ones that get a lot of big investors and a lot of a lot of funding goes through these institutions and then when we have collaborations with them they hit us up for the expertise or for the for the young professionals aspect of it so definitely collaboration developing your technical and soft skills and try to like the the idea is not to do it alone because starting starting out alone as a sole chapter is very difficult yes great thank you very much for such a like full response I believe it might help people as well I'm just wondering I remember I think Igor had some kind of experience with startup do you want to share any any advice on that for young professionals you know it was both specific and contact me I hope you can hear me clearly yeah now now it's better because in the beginning it was not really good okay okay I said anything specific you can reach out to me and it's a very specific topic depends on what you do is it entrepreneurship as usual say business as usual and where are you in which sector in the water sector it's a little bit different than let's say in a let's say consumer business because usually in the water sector you work on a B2B basis so your business to business mainly and this requires some networking in in a on a governmental or in a municipal level so being in the young water professionals and looking for some and and having the aspirations to start a startup is definitely beneficial because from from my side for example I already know the stakeholders and the big players in the Austrian ecosystem when it comes to water and the water network although my startup is not working in Austria in another case would be super beneficial okay yeah it's a lot of work if you want to start startup my general answer is don't do it but if you really need to then do it it's a lot of fun and it's a lot of something that you learn by doing and it's a counterpart to the university also study finish something and then go for startup I'm sure it will be always like out of the comfort zone right in case if you yes basically that's it yeah I think we have some thank you I think we have some question from Xenia Golovko yeah hi everyone I hope you can hear me yeah we can yeah so I just had a question maybe completely different from the startup experience but I thought maybe it would be relevant to those who are pursuing their PhD right now I was just having like my experience looking for some way targeted summer winter schools for my postgraduate and I found out that it might be kind of good maybe to have some page that on young water professionals website or generally on either website that they get it for kind of up-to-date list of the course for the summer winter schools because I think well some some like schools are very advertised and maybe it's easy to find them but some way you target it smaller ones it's kind of maybe scattered information you can't really get it that easily maybe I'm wrong maybe it's already exists some kind of like that but at least yeah I was just wondering if there is some something like that yes I can jump into this. So thank you for a question when it comes to disseminating the content from the white focus on young water professionals we have some outlets which are our social media and then the YWP newsletter and of course all the opportunities that we receive it they are posted on Connect Plus so as long as you are a member and you are a young water professional you can access this information on Connect Plus which is our dedicated system to engage members okay yeah thank you so much yeah. Okay I'm also wondering we've been talking about this attractiveness or recognition of water sector maybe our guys from other chapters can share more successful let's say stories how to make the water sector more attractive or anyone from the participants from the... can join? Hi, you heard me well? Yes, yes. Perfect, well from the experience of the chapter to create or to be more attractive for the water sector for the professionals for the enterprises we thought that the idea to create activities where the YWP school steps up present projects initiatives innovating plans any kind of ideas that might help first of all to the professional to the young water professionals to grow up in the sector to give new perspectives from from different kind of projects for example as we said about the hackathon the young water hack that we made the last year most of all of the event at the end is the how the enterprise understand how how is the difference between the the real the present problems present solutions the present technologies with the planning of the system and the young professionals to make the solutions the future how to interact with the present solutions present problems and the free problems for the future for example understand that now these problems it is based on the current support current I don't know if I explain myself properly yeah I think you explained properly but you're a bit breaking maybe your network is breaking so maybe we can move to someone else I think that I have the connection I don't know like slowly but bottom line I am I'm trying to explain that the young water professionals currently have the opportunity to step up and present ideas that might help to the sector with the breach of the platform of young water professionals being the the main factor that may then get involved with the solutions present a future I don't know go yeah I think it was quite clear and then I think Nerea has something to add to your response yeah 100 agree I think young water professionals is a great way to bring visibility to the sector and to the young people in the sector and recruitment and the sustainable workforce of tomorrow that's something we are actively working on and we have been interested for quite some time also the Danish water sector is very interested and I think that's why they saw the value in young water professionals and and have been supporting us so I think related to I wanted to answer also the other question with getting the sponsorships I think I think it helps to you know self reflect on what your value is and be very clear about the value that you provide to the sponsor so it's not a one way we do so very good at branding run yourself professionally and be sure that you that you show them that you actually bring a lot of value to the sector and then I was going to comment on I think was Jacob that was talking about these questionnaire and how people that work in the water sector do not consider salaries very important and that is also what we find out here when we do these questionnaires and we talk to the young people in the sector and so I think it's very clear to me that we are very good at getting the passion driven people into the sector and if that's not enough then maybe we should be looking at how do we get the other people that maybe care a little bit more about not just passion but also working conditions maybe yeah I think maybe not only professional but like other social things is quite important so it should be taken into account and I can see Maria having her hand up so yes I just wanted to add in terms of passion I completely agree we do have a lot of passion all people involved in the water sector usually do it because they love it not because of the money however I think exposure is a big one that we need to consider at least at our universities people usually stumble across into the water sector rather than choosing a career from a young age so exposure from different levels from primary school moving up to university level I think is very important to stop the ageing population in the workforce of the water sector but also it's a niche environment so you require to bring it to people's attention in order to spark that enthusiasm that I'm sure we all have yes for sure it should be like a complex question it's not like the thing of one year or like one let's say one part of the professionals but yeah if it will be incorporated from the beginning to elder that will be great yes I think we will try to share some more information about upcoming events and we also have one of the sorry I think my slides is not sharing right one of the upcoming event what we will have very soon will be also young water professionals benelux what will be in the beginning of the June and there will be also a big event like World Water Congress and Exhibition for which the registration is currently open so we are also inviting you to register and participate actively for those who are not yet member you can get 20 discount and become a member and use all of the benefits and opportunities of improving your knowledge skills and network as well and of course I would like to thank all of the our speakers for their time for their efforts and for their efforts even though before years that they you've been trying to encourage and to engage young water professionals of our generation and future one and also for all of the participants who also join us and are curious of getting to know more about young water professionals and the opportunities what it can give us yes thank you very much I don't know if Isabella would like to add anything I would just want to make some comments because I was seeing the chat so when it comes to meetings only with chapters we have the global coordination call and we organize it one per semester so yes we are hosting one this semester and regarding updates about the countries chapters as long as they keep us they had quarters updated so they send us information about what they are doing and they submit the annual report then we can definitely work on more newsletters but that's it everything that's all from my side and if you have any other questions please feel free to reach out to me and from my side thank you for all the speakers and participants and special thanks to the Jamila who coordinated and led this event yeah thank you everyone and I'm happy always to organize and participate