I have spent the first part of this week in Abu Dhabi at the
International Water Summit. This is a mammoth event with exhibitors and
conference speakers aplenty. There are literally thousands of delegates and
hundreds of exhibitors, all networking and doing deals and generally keeping
the wheels of commerce turning. The event is sponsored by Masdar, the
multi-billion dollar Abu Dhabi company that is both the brains and the money
behind many of the sustainability initiatives in the region. The Masdar logo is
everywhere, and so it should be, they have pumped millions into sponsoring the
event. Little old Isle, the small technical consultancy for which I am
Chairman, is coordinating ‘Innovate@IWS’, a dragons den forum for new
technologies which is running across all three days of the event. We are
miniscule compared to Masdar so you can imagine my delight when I spotted that
our logo was bigger than that of Masdar (see attached). I suspect someone will
get sacked for this, but for my part I want to shake their hand and express my
gratitude.Lesson learnt: Size Does Matter
One of the many historic deals that was formally signed
during the past few days was the renewal of a three year agreement between Isle
and WSAA (the Water Services Association of Australia). Adam Lovell, WSAA’s
CEO, and I had a suitably grand signing ceremony this morning, complete with
video cameras, post-event interviews and photographers. After three years
working together to bring new, disruptive technologies to the Australian Water
Sector we are committing to another three years. It is the corporate equivalent
of renewing our marriage vows! Despite all the pomp and glamour that will be
fantastically captured in the photos, web-blogs and press releases one key fact
is missing. There wasn’t actually anyone in the audience when we signed the
documents. Lesson learnt: You Don’t Always Need and Audience
I have written previously about the rising salinity in the
Gulf. This is an emerging catastrophic environmental issue that must be
addressed now. I had wrongly assumed that the chief cause of the
salinity increase was the 1500+ desalination facilities in the region, many of
which discharge a nasty strong brine into the Gulf. Listening to Dr Ouarda from
the Masdar Institute, I learnt that brine is actually a resource from which we
can extract energy and precious metals, and that the increase in the Gulf’s
salinity is caused more by increased evaporation (due to climate change) than
brine discharges. Furthermore, I attended the inaugural Global Clean Water
Desalination Alliance (GCWDA) meeting. The main objective of the GCWDA is
simple: to develop a credible, reliable, robust desalination method that
is completely carbon neutral. Their catch phase is ‘H20 without CO2’.
If this can be made to work (and quickly) there might be hope for the Gulf.
Lesson learnt: There is hope. There is always hope.
In recent years I have been likened to Woody Harrelson more
times than I care to mention. Usually people come up to me and say something to
my face (‘Hey mate, you look like that bloke from Cheers/Hunger
Games/Zombieland! You know, the bald bloke that looks a bit manic and weird’).
This week I discovered people talk about my Woody-likeness behind my back. If
he ever follows the example of some of his Hollywood colleagues and makes an
all-action film where Arabs are the baddies I will be screwed. My ability to
get through local airport customs is already pretty difficult, that would be
the final straw. Lesson Learnt: My fate is in Woody’s hands.
Finally, security at IWS is tight. Or at least gives the
impression of being tight. The entrance to the event has airport-like security
with x ray machines and body scanners. For the first two days the scanners
beeped whenever anyone walked through them and no one seemed to take any
notice. On the third day they addressed this annoying beeping problem….by
turning them off completely. Like non-thinking robots we all still queued
diligently to go through them. Yesterday when I made it through the scanner I
found that someone before me had mistakenly taken my bag as it looked similar
to his own. It took 30 minutes and a Sherlock Holmes like search of his bag to
locate him. He was mortified when I eventually connected with him but I told
him it didn’t matter, thinks like this happen. Little does he know I removed
his passport. Payback will be sweet. Lesson Learnt: I need a Pink Rucksack,
Black is too Common
Late tonight, at 230am, I fly back to the UK. I am
choosing to see my overnight flight in Economy as part of my training for this
coming weekends swim in Haiti (see last Note). Many thanks to those of you who
have kindly made donations, I am overawed at your generosity. The link to
donate is at: http://swimforhaiti.org/donate.html,
should you feel so minded.
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