Inspiring Young Water Scientists to Stay the Course
Scenes from the 2009 Stockholm Junior Water Prize, including the three winners (left photo, from l. to r.): runner-up Emily Elhacham from Israel, grand prize winner Ceren Burçak Dag from Turkey and runner-up Mary Zhao from Canada.
With its sponsorship of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, ITT is motivating young minds to find great solutions to the world's water issues — now and in the years ahead.
Like rivers flowing to the same ocean, more than 50 high school students from around the world made their way to Sweden in August 2009 as finalists in the ITT-sponsored Stockholm Junior Water Prize. They took different routes to this destination, but all of them were driven by an inner and urgent need to save the world's shrinking supply of clean water.
"I sincerely believe that the welfare of humanity is dependent on securing a permanent supply of clean water," says Emily Elhacham from Israel, who earned a runner-up Diploma of Excellence award for her project on detecting water contamination using metal nanoparticle networks.
It's not always easy being a young water scientist. The water issue hasn't yet become a global hot-button issue, so these students sometimes encounter raised eyebrows as they try to raise awareness about the coming water crisis.
"Not everyone is as interested in this topic as me," admits this year's top-prize winner, Ceren Burçak Dag from Turkey. "But maybe projects like these will prove to be an important ignition point."
ITT began sponsoring the Stockholm Junior Water Prize in 1995 as a way to motivate young people like Dag and Elhacham to keep moving forward in their search for water solutions — and to recognize and reward them for accepting the challenge. The company not only supports the international competition, it sponsors qualifying contests in 10 countries and provides employees from ITT's Fluid Technology business to judge the students' sophisticated entries.
The Prize produces some outstanding and unique solutions. Dag's winning entry demonstrated how raindrops can be transferred into electricity, creating a new energy source that is clean and doesn't contaminate our precious air and water supplies.
But the real power of the Prize is its ability to inspire these budding scientists to make water their life calling. These are smart students with options, and the competition helps show them that there is a future in saving the world's water supply.
One of this year's runner-ups, Mary Zhao from Canada, says she will pursue environmental science at the university level and plans to "use the knowledge I gain to increase the public's awareness of the importance of water conservation and research." She credits the Stockholm Junior Water Prize for helping her stay on course.
"The experience was amazing and a highlight of my high school career," says Zhao, whose Prize project was an environmentally friendly and commercially viable alternative to silver iodide for cloud seeding. "It was a unique opportunity for me to share my perspective about water conservation and research with other students from around the world and to have meaningful conversations with water specialists from around the world.
"Now, I'm ready for the next stage," she continues. "I hope... No, I know I can contribute to the effort of finding solutions to water-related issues."
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