On 23 April 2021, the BORDA South Africa team in partnership with the Green Cape, Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA) Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Branch hosted an innovative and informative breakfast seminar centred on ‘The Commercialisation of Water and Sanitation Innovations.’ with the focus on business case factors that would benefit water and sanitation innovators compete with technologies on the market. The crucial steps required for innovators to rapidly scale up their technologies in a cost effective and efficient manner. There were concrete discussions and exchanges for potential opportunities to find solutions that hinder innovations and technologies from being scaled up in the South African landscape and market. The seminar aimed to find real life cases studies where innovations and technologies within the water and sanitation sector continue to push boundaries and replicate the business models used to create more opportunities within the sector.
Over breakfast and virtual exchanges, participants discovered possible sanitation technologies, innovations, ideologies, approaches, current research, and ways to bring these concepts to scale – all in support of providing crucial water and sanitation solutions that will change the lives of communities locally and internationally. Participants included stakeholders from the City of Cape Town, City of Johannesburg, and Durban metro (municipality & NGOs) water and sanitation cluster, water service authorities (Rand Water, Umgeni Water), engineering consulting firms, university students and lecturers.
Presentations from a variety of experts highlighted concrete and sometimes surprising ways that would improve the water and sanitation landscape:
• pathways to sustainable prosperity in the 4IR-enabled water & sanitation sector (Mr. Lucky Litelu from The ICRD Group Holdings)
• industrializing sanitation for transformation (Mr. Akin Akinsete from Water Research Commission)
• utilising the circular economy for sanitation & waste management in booming cities (Mr. Tim Egan from Sanergy)
• packaging the Andy Loo toilet system (Mr. Ben Mfazwe from Andy Loo)
A panel discussion and Q&A session, moderated by Mr. Lloyd Govender- Project Engineer from the BORDA South Africa, brought presenters together for a joint seating physically and virtually to enable a rich exchange between live and virtual attendees and presenters.
About the Author
