Explore the Water-Energy Nexus...in Abu Dhabi
When we were contacted by our friends at Triple Pundit for help promoting an incredible competition they're running that will send one lucky individual to Abu Dhabi for Sustainability Week, we figured we'd let them tell us about it in their own words. So Triple Pundit founder Nick Aster joins us below for a quick run-down of this incredible opportunity, perfect for bloggers, sustainability experts, students, and anyone interested in water and energy issues.
The competition is simple: publish a blog post by January 3rd addressing the question: What steps can individuals, businesses or world leaders take to address the most pressing and often interrelated water and energy challenges? Tag and submit your post, and promote it via social media. A judging panel will select the winner, and send them to Abu Dhabi as a VIP member of the media to cover Abu Dhabi Sustainability week.
Jess: Can you tell me a little about the partnership between Triple Pundit and Masdar, the company sponsoring this competition?
Nick: We first visited Masdar and Abu Dhabi two years ago to cover the World Future Energy Summit, an enormous annual conference on energy issues, which has an increasing focus on renewable energy and sustainability in general. Over the last two years, we've encouraged Masdar to get more involved with social media to help advance their own brand awareness and to make sustainability in the Middle East more visible. Masdar came up with this blogging competition as a way to kick off this year's Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.
What's the water-energy nexus, and what role does Masdar and Triple Pundit play in it?
The water energy nexus is the idea that critical constraints on both energy and water are happening at the same time. Both of these issues are major areas of interest for us, as they constitute two of the principal problems that the sustainability movement is trying to address. Water is especially important in a desert country like the United Arab Emirates for obvious reasons.
This isn't exactly a crowdsourcing competition; you're asking people to write for their own blogs and networks. What's the benefit of that approach - for Triple Pundit, and for the issues of water and energy?
Entering is very easy and brings its own benefits in terms of getting entrants' thoughts out to an influential audience. There's a meta-benefit for Masdar in that having lots of people talk about the water-energy issue raises the volume of dialogue - that's good for anyone who cares about it.
Entrants are asked to explore What steps can individuals, businesses or world leaders take to address the most pressing and often interrelated water and energy challenges? Is there a particular approach you think is likely to be most successful when addressing this question?
I think there are potentially dozens, from engaging the C-suite to promoting grassroots movements to coming up with new business startups. We're excited to hear from many points of view and I hope to hear ideas I'd never considered.
The winner will be flown to Abu Dhabi to cover Sustainability Week for Triple Pundit - so is this for professional writers only? Who should participate?
That's right, it's a wonderful opportunity to visit one of the most fascinating places on the planet and engage with heads of state, dozens of major companies and discuss renewable energy and sustainability in the heart of oil country. Anyone can enter, you just have to be over 18. Don't be discouraged if you're not a professional writer - anyone with good ideas and a talent for sharing them is a likely winner!
