Festival of innovations, knowledge sharing: INK@WASH 3.0 to be held in Hyderabad on 5, 6 May

Hyderabad: The city is all set to welcome innovators from different parts of the country who are coming up with a bundle of solutions for the problems around water sanitation and hygiene (WASH). In one of the biggest meetings of innovators, Hyderabad is surely going to witness a lot of knowledge sharing.

The Summit on Innovation and New Knowledge in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (INK@WASH) is one of the offerings of Wash Innovation Hub (WIH), an initiative of Telangana municipal administration and urban development (MAUD) in partnership with the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), to identify, nurture, and scale transformational solutions for better WASH outcomes in cities.

INK@WASH is a unique initiative to promote collaboration and partnerships between start-ups/innovators and cities, funders, CSR units of corporates, and other like-minded stakeholders for achieving transformative change in the sector.

INK@WASH 3.0, to be held from 5 to 6 May 2022, will showcase over 100 water sanitation and hygiene innovations.

The event will spotlight innovations with TEDx-style talks, panel discussions, exhibitions, and networking sessions between innovators, policymakers, government officials, and funders associated with water management, used water management, fecal sludge and septage management (FSSM), plastics management, municipal and solid waste management (MSWM), and hygiene sectors. The innovations showcased during this event will support local governments in implementing SBM 2.0, AMRUT 2.0, and Jal Jeevan Mission (Grameen). These solutions will help urban areas to plan and implement citywide inclusive water and sanitation approaches.

Special chief secretary (MAUD) Arvind Kumar will speak at the inaugural session and MAUD minister K.T Rama Rao will address the gathering at the valedictory function. After the inaugural session on 5 May, there will be a special address by Sunita Narain, the director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment, on the need for innovations for garbage-free and water-secure urban India.

Some of the innovators participating at the event are Retas, Rainwater Harvesting, AntHill Creations, Ecowrap, Oorvi Foundation, Digital Paani, Trashcon, and many more.

Speaking about the event, Prof. V Srinivas Chary, director of ASCI, pointed out that there are not many platforms that bring together different innovative solutions for WASH problems. "We just have eight years to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). At this time, when there is a sense of urgency, conventional approaches may not get us the desired results. In this context, the government of Telangana and ASCI forged partnerships to introduce transformational solutions which will accelerate the achievement of water sanitation and hygienic goals. There are solutions in healthcare, vaccination, education, etc. but unfortunately, there is no platform for WASH solutions. This led to the genesis of the Wash Innovation Hub in 2019," said Prof. Chary.

Further, he said, "On 5 and 6 May several innovators, mentors, and academicians will come together under the banner INK@WASH , one of the initiatives of the Wash Innovation Hub. The purpose of this event is to showcase the ideas of young entrepreneurs and businessmen who have shaped these ideas to perfection and spent their energies and it will enable to provide some phenomenal traction for the innovations. They need the support of city leadership. Therefore, my request to cities and state governments is to embrace these solutions and simplify ease of doing business."

Living in times of a pandemic, he emphasised the need for such solutions. He also added that he envisions that a number of these start-ups will also become unicorns in future and that he could already see half a dozen unicorns among them.

In January 2020, the first edition of Ink@Wash was conducted. In January 2021, due to COVID-19, the event was held online.

NewsMeter is the formal media partner for INK@WASH 3.0.