The 2018 Asia Water Forum was held from October 2-5 at the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) headquarters in Manila, Philippines. This year’s conference was focused on themes of “Information, Innovation, and Technology”, and was attended by Oceanit’s Sterling Yee, Director of Strategic Consulting, and Vinod Veedu, Director of Strategic Initiatives.
The Asia Water Forum (AWF) is a biennial conference that addresses the region’s growing water needs in an effort to prepare for or avert water crises in the future.
The ADB supports the AWF in addressing water challenges by embracing new technologies and innovations to improve the effectiveness of water investments. By introducing new innovations, ADB hopes to address water insecurity, promote economic growth, advance progress towards meeting sustainable development goals, strengthen adaptation to climate change, and increase disaster risk resilience.
Sterling Yee has been spearheading Oceanit’s efforts to build relationships with the ADB and across SE Asia by sharing the mission and capabilities of Oceanit’s Resilient Sustainable Engineering (RiSE) team, along with introducing disruptive technologies that Oceanit’s Science & Technology group is bringing from mind to market.
In his three trips to Manila in 2018, Sterling has been sharing RiSE’s mission; to deliver innovative, responsible, effective, and sustainable infrastructure, communities, and ecosystems that are capable of surviving and functioning under chronic stress and recovering quickly from extreme events. RiSE works to solve many problems here in Hawai’i that the coastal countries of SE Asia are also susceptible to. With a deep expertise in addressing sea level rise, increased wave energy, coastal erosion, and preservation of coastal ecosystems, Oceanit is excited to deliver impactful engineering solutions in SE Asia as well.
At AWF conference, Vinod Veedu delivered a presentation titled, “Functional Surfaces for Highly Efficient, Low Carbon, Low Cost Desalination” which focused on how nanocomposite surfaces can greatly increase the efficiency of desalination processes. Current desalination efforts are typically high-cost in that they consume a lot of energy in order to desalinate saline water. This high energy cost of course correlates to higher carbon emissions from the amount of energy that must be consumed.
Functional nanocomposite technologies, such as Oceanit’s HeatX and DragX, have shown that by mitigating issues like corrosion, fouling, and surface roughness, functional surface treatments can deliver a huge efficiency increase to industrial processes. We are working to deliver a future where processes such as power production and desalination become less impactful in greenhouse gas emissions and production costs while becoming more available to developing countries and far more efficient.
In addition to his presentation on cost-effective desalination, Vinod joined a panel to discuss innovation in water production and diversification of resources. He shared Oceanit’s S&T vision of developing transdisciplinary solutions to impactful problems, break through, and transition – delivering a better future.
Vinod Veedu presenting at AWF
Sterling Yee at the ADB
