WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR THE WIF TEAM CHALLENGE 2023
26 June 2023
(0 Comments)
Posted by: Neilas Svilpa
This annual competition brings together young professionals from different organisations across the water sector to identify and pitch an idea around a specific challenge. This year’s theme was “The importance of nature-based solutions (NBS) to a sustainable society” and the challenge was to identify and pitch one or more ideas for convincing today’s schoolchildren of the critical importance of water related nature-based solutions to their future.
The teams first met back in April at the competition briefing, which took place at the Birmingham offices of our event supporter, WSP. The ten teams, comprised of young water professionals from throughout the UK, worked together over the following weeks and were then invited back to the present their ideas to the audience and an independent judging panel of senior leaders from the water sector.
The teams had less than 15 minutes to present their ideas and answer questions from the panel, who scored each team according to how well they had understood the task, the practicality of their idea, the quality of their presentation and other key criteria. 
Judging Panel: Blair Mitchell, WSP; Prof. Jan Hofman, University of Bath; Steve Tetlow, JN Bentley; Dan Roberts, WWT; Chloe Morley, Severn Trent; Richard Thompson, Environment Agency
Whilst the judges deliberated, we heard from our keynote speaker, Steve Kaye, Chief Executive at UKWIR.
Lead judge, Blair Mitchell, Head of Water at WSP announced the results. Blair was impressed with the standard of the presentations and, along with his fellow judges, felt that the winning team, who presented their idea for working with schools for a nature-based future, had met all the objectives of the competition with a clear concept for a “Climate Crisis Day” and a well-delivered presentation.
The judges awarded the following:
Winning Team
TEAM 6: CLIMATE CRISIS DAY – WORKING WITH SCHOOLS FOR A NATURE-BASED FUTURE
 
Winning Team: Olivia Rowe, Graduate Catchment Scientist, Mott MacDonald Bentley; Dr. Jess Penny, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Exeter; Ben Hazard, Process Engineer, Te-Tech Process Solutions; Emily McAuliffe, Team & Events Admin Apprentice, Northumbrian Water Group (not pictured).
Highly Commended Team
TEAM 4: ECO-EDVENTURES™ - CONNECTING SCHOOLS WITH NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
Rhys Wilkes, Project Manager, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water; Kieran Murnane, Graduate Environmental Hydrologist, Mott MacDonald; Dan Pearce, Graduate Scientist, Water Research Centre (WRc); Sophie Read, Graduate Project Manager, Skanska – pictured receiving their prizes from Blair Mitchell, WSP. Commended Team
TEAM 8: THE WATER LITERACY SERIES – BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN CHILDREN & NATURE
Billi Jackson, Graduate Project Manager, Skanska; Rudi Botha, Process Engineer, Transcend Software; Lowri Robbins, Project Manager, Northumbrian Water – pictured here with Blair Mitchell, Head of Water, WSP. WSP Prize Winning Team
Team 4 was also highly commended by the judging panel and received the WSP prize for innovation used during their excellent interactive presentation. 
The event concluded with a drinks reception for all participants. Congratulations to everyone who took part and thank you to the judges, our speaker, Steve Kaye, and to our event supporter, WSP, for generously hosting and providing their facilities for the challenge.
|
Email to a Friend
