Global Partnerships for Climate Resiliency Addressing Urban Water and Sanitation
November 5, 2024 | 13:00 - 14:30
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Summary
This SDG in Action session will holistically convene, demonstrate, and discuss how higher education can lead in advancing technologies and improving the human condition. The Georgia Institute of Technology will convene a series of global partners, consisting of universities (e.g., Duke, NYU, University of Washington), philanthropies (e.g., Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, MacArthur Foundation), and non-governmental organizations (e.g., Habitat for Humanity International, the New York Climate Exchange, the International Living Futures Institute) around how new technologies (such as reinvented toilets and off-sewer, off-grid blackwater treatment systems) can serve future urban habitats undergoing reconstruction from crisis (e.g., regions like Gaza, Ukraine). During the event, new technologies will be showcased, potential urban planning (reconstruction) solutions will be presented, and global collaborations will be fostered. Central to this session will be the built environment and climate action-oriented solutions that can be deployed today for a better tomorrow. Specifically, this session will discuss the Living Building Challenge, the success story that have originated, and the planned Living Buildings to be completed and certified.
Overall, this session will consist of a panel of experts from higher education, technologists, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Each panelist will present on their technological advances and set the stage for an interactive discussion with the audience. In addition to the panel, short presentation (in-person, virtual, or pre-recorded) opportunities will be afforded to others to further motivate conversation with the audience. The panel will then provide reflections and engage with the audience in discussion around these short presentations. Additionally, exhibits will be proposed that directly tie to the sessions presentations to afford WUF attendees the opportunity to witness the technology solutions for themselves in the exhibit space. The overall goal of this session is to provide WUF attendees with a feeling of optimism for future, through the revolutionary technologies that are maturing to address challenges with climate action and urban water and sanitation. This session hopes to foster more global partnership in achieving the SDGs with a lens on the challenges that the urban habitat will face with (i) unpredictable climate scenarios, and (ii) the water and sanitation stressors.
Objectives
The key objective of this session is to share with the WUF attendees recent technological breakthroughs and efforts to lower barriers for their massive adoption in order to accelerate urban improvements towards meeting some SDG goals and also improve the human condition. Through this session’s panel, short presentations, and discussion with the audience, we hope to exchange knowledge and best practices, leveraging higher education’s mission and focus to improve the human condition.
Additional secondary objectives include highlighting: (i) efforts to address water and sanitation challenges through the invention of new technologies, (ii) international collaborations and global partnership in higher education that will improve the human condition, and (iii) climate actions that improve the coastal urban climate resiliencies.
A tertiary objective is to bring together new attendees to WUF, who have not historically been represented, and to share what they can bring to the global forum (e.g., the Georgia Institute of Technology and our partners).