In February 2015 attended a lecture
about Israel and water and learned much about the business side of water:
Israel and Water: Collaboration, Innovation,
and Global Leadership”
Booky Oren, Chairman and CEO, Booky Oren Global
Water Technologies
Water shortages
persist as a major issue all over the world. In 2013 however, Israel overcame
its water challenges through implementing a variety of technological solutions,
making 2013 Israel’s “Water Independence Year.” In this talk, Booky Oren will
discuss Israel’s innovative water solutions and how they can be leveraged in a
global context to create economic growth while also assisting billions of
people worldwide.
Booky Oren is not an engineer but an MBA.
He started the talk with two maps of the Middle East. One
from space. The second one the underground water flows. In both
maps there were no borders.
(Ahhh how many of us would like a world without borders...)
In 1912 the British calculated that the water resources in the
area of the Palestine mandate can support a population of 2.5 million.
Today there are 14 million people living in the area. I would like
to stress our human ingenuity, the advances we made in science and technology.
I do not prescribe to any idea of shortages and lack of this or that.
It is in our power to bring abundance into our lives and that of our
fellow humans.
Water has been used in war and in peace. In 1967 Syria tried
to block the water resources to Israel as part of their goals in the six day
war. In 1994 Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan where they promise
to provide Jordan with all their water needs. 2013 was marked as the year
of water independence for Israel.
Booky Oren is interested in the commercial aspects of water.
He was CFO of Israeli companies such as Mekorot and Netafim. He is
now involved in i2i “Innovation to Implementation.”
He claims water technology can solve many problems around the
world. Like me he is convinced that there is plenty of water, there is
abundance! He has a global perspective and he pointed out that politicians
are still using water for political gains. They will keep the same old
infrastructure and red tape in any possible way they can to slow down
implementations of new technology. If there is a drought in one place
there is flood in other places so this is where we should allow our ingenuity
to take over. He brought the example of desalinations plants in Israel.
For years the budget did not include operation of these plants. The
year there was a drought the operation of the desalination plants was instantly
funded.
Israel needs to leverage its technology for partnerships with
water utility companies.
In closing the speaker pointed out a list of proven innovative
global water technologies that can improve the sector:
Israel: ELTAV www.eltav.com, OUTLOCKS.
Switzerland: Gutermann.
Canada: viva modeling
Spain: Aqualogy
Germany: HSTsystem
USA: FATHOM http://www.gwfathom.com/
UCLA: NORIA
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