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The Innovation Space hosted the ‘Open-talk: traverser le désert’ session as part of the Roscongress Foundation’s Building Trust Area. The participants in the open talk discussed the development of end-to-end technologies in water supply, water treatment, and alternative sources of fresh water. Representatives of three high-tech companies that were granted Business Priority status by the Roscongress Foundation spoke about new solutions and methods used for water extraction and to treat water facilities.

“The issue of access to clean drinking water is a rather acute one for many countries on the African continent. We are glad that Russia has innovative companies whose technologies are capable of solving this problem. As participants in the Business Priority project, the companies that gave presentations today in the Innovation Space can count on the full support of the Roscongress Foundation when promoting their products on international markets, including those of Africa,” said Marianna Skragan, the director of the Business Priority project.

The international company Watergen showed off its GEN-350 medium-sized device, which is capable of producing up to 900 litres of fresh drinking water per day from the air. A similar large unit produces up to 5,000 litres of water per day. The eco-friendly, energy-efficient, and easy-to-use GENius technology (which only requires a power source) developed by the company’s specialists could radically alter the difficult situation with drinking water in Africa. “Every person in the world from birth has the right to the basic need for clean drinking water, regardless of where he/she lives, colour, or religious beliefs. Our engineering solution makes this a reality,” Watergen Vice President of Marketing and Sales Michael Rutman said.

Watergen has had great success selling its technology in the United States, Mexico, Vietnam, South Africa, Brazil, the Middle East, North Africa, Russia, and China. The company collaborates with several governments to provide urgent supplies of drinking water in emergency situations.

The company Avtonomika’s innovative project Oasis also has good prospects on the African continent. The technology allows for the geoengineering of habitable plots in desert and arid areas. Avtonomika Founder Sergey Dorzhiyev said, “The equipment is the first attempt to use nature-like technical means to combat desertification and land degradation and maintain the ecological structure of fragile and unique natural habitats in arid zones.”

The third participant in the open talk, the company Health Source, presented a decentralized drinking water supply system using its uniquely designed automated equipment. The innovative equipment and technology makes it possible to provide high-quality drinking water to the population in places where there is no centralized drinking water supply. In addition, there is no need to use disposable plastic bottles that harm the environment.

Experts from the Hydroproject Institute who were invited to the talk, Director for Operational Management and Strategic Development Sergey Machekhin and Director of the Foreign Projects Department Vladislav Vasiliyev, as well as representatives of African countries offered high praise for the technologies that were presented.

Kama Flow Director of Design Activities Yevgeny Vasiliyev summed up the general opinion of those who attended the open talk: “Today we were presented with various technical solutions in water technologies. Each of them is unique and can be used to solve specific problems. The main thing that unites these technologies is an attempt to solve the long-standing problem of many people’s inability to provide their families with clean drinking water.”

The Building Trust Area is a unique platform that unites two of the Roscongress Foundation’s projects – the Innovation Space and the Innosocium LAB, which aim to map out the social agenda and build a dialogue between participants in the innovation and social ecosystem. The programme operator is the Innosocium Foundation – the social platform of the Roscongress Foundation.

A detailed version of the business programme of the Building Trust Area at the Russia–Africa Economic Forum is available here.

Gazprom is the general partner and Aksioma is the partner of the Innovation Space at the Russia–Africa Economic Forum.

The Business Priority project aims to improve the competitiveness of the Russian economy by promoting Russian-made innovative products and technologies. Its goal is to create a national quality standard that is recognized by the international community for high-tech innovative projects with a high level of liquidity on the global market.

The events are being organized by the Roscongress Foundation, and the co-organizers of the Russia–Africa Economic Forum are Russian Export Center and Afreximbank.