News.Aug 12, 2020

Join us for WWW At Home!

What will the internet of things mean for the water sector? How has Covid-19 impacted sanitation for the urban poor? And is there any progress ahead of the climate summit COP26?

Join us at World Water Week At Home to find out! Browse through the programme to see all the sessions you can follow for free between 24 and 28 August.

WWWeek At Home is your chance to listen to some of the world’s most interesting water and development voices. Under the #wwweek #athome hashtags, leading organizations will band together to discuss how water can help solve some of today’s greatest challenges, such as the climate crisis, food security and health. The programme covers no less than 120 sessions on a broad range of topics. All sessions are open to anyone, free of charge.

“We are very happy that to be able to offer such a diversity, with distinguished speakers helping us understand important new trends. In today’s turbulent world there is great need for this type of reflection and analysis, so I hope that many people will seize the opportunity to tap into this knowledge,” says Gabriela Suhoschi, Director World Water Week & Prizes at SIWI.

The idea of WWWeek At Home was born after the regular World Water Week 2020 had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. The organizers at SIWI decided to launch an alternative arena for important conversations about how to tackle climate change and other urgent issues. The digital format gives students, practitioners, and decision-makers around the globe an unusual chance to engage with leading experts and follow high-quality sessions.

To Gabriela Suhoschi it is important to bring together people from different sectors and parts of the world. The digital format creates new possibilities and the insights gathered from WWWeek At Home will be used to further develop the regular World Water Week to make it even more inclusive and interactive. “If there is one thing recent events have taught us, it is that we need collaboration and communication. World Water Week must offer meeting places in real life but also digital opportunities,” Suhoschi says.

One innovative feature during WWWeek At Home will be the collaboration with a Dutch graphic recorder, who will visualize the main messages from ten selected sessions.

In addition to the 120 sessions hosted by partner organizations that had already been selected to convene sessions at World Water Week, the WWWeek At Home umbrella also covers a festive opening on Monday 24 August at 9.30am CET and a reflective closing session on Friday 28 August 6pm CET. Maybe most exciting of all, on Tuesday 25 August at 2pm CET, H.R.H Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden will announce the winner of the prestigious Stockholm Junior Water Prize.

Check out the programme and start planning which sessions you want to join. Some sessions will also be recorded and can be viewed afterwards; all information is available in the programme.