Recently, the Swedish embassy in Ha Noi together with the natural resources and environment ministry launched a smart water innovation contest.
This competition is held in response to pressing water-related challenges that Vietnam is and would be facing in the near future.
Some of the reasons being that Vietnam has neither the physical infrastructure nor financial capacity to be self-sufficient in water supply.
All these coupled with the naturally occurring reason of an uneven distribution of rainfall, further worsens their problem of water insufficiently.
Nguyen Minh Khuyen, deputy director of the department of water resources, said that Vietnam faces several challenges related to water. He then stresses that there was an urgent need to find solutions to meet the demand for water in future.
This contest hopes to generate ideas, and possible products, services and solutions that are able to contribute to sustainable use of water.
“I hope to create dialogues between different countries to share experiences related to water access and protection. The contest was part of the efforts.” said Sweden’s Ambassador to Vietnam.
In addition, this contest also aims to inspire young, local students of higher educational institutions to tackle sustainable development and climate change issues and subsequently, develop innovative water –related solutions that will engender real change.
“By joining the contest, Vietnamese youth could compete in a healthy manner with their creative ideas and thus get real and professional experience in contributing towards making long-term changes for the community,” said Anna Bratt, a representative of the jury.
Despite the fact that water sufficiency is still a rather huge complication for Vietnam, persistent governmental efforts at tackling these water resources management issues are still commendable and noteworthy.
