Water Professionals Convene at CEU for "Bridging ICTs and Environment" Course

Thirty-three water practitioners, academics, and decision-makers from 20 countries including Iran, Jamaica, Nigeria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Nepal, and beyond are convening at CEU in Budapest for the ISEPEI "Making Information Talk and Technologies Work for Water Security" workshop this week, July 6-10. Run in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and with support from the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI), this workshop features faculty from leading UN agencies, global environmental institutions, and the ICT industry, including UNEP, the Black Sea Commission, and Google.

Viktor Lagutov (CEU), Mahesh Pradhan (Head of UNEP's Environmental Education and Training Unit), and Lorant Czaran (UNOOSA) opened the workshop yesterday morning, highlighting the importance of improved data for decision-making and for the achievement of the SDGs (sustainable development goals), main themes of the Eye on Earth Initiative, for which this workshop is run. Irina Makarenko of the Black Sea Commission and Vadim Sokolov of the Scientific-Information Center of the Interstate Coordination Water Commission of Central Asia (SIC-ICWC) spoke about the need for improved data-driven decision-making from a policy perspective. The next few days will feature faculty from several other water-, ICT-, and environmental-related organizations, including Ecocity Builders (USA), the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (Tunisia), Google (UK), among others.

See photos of the event here.