I had the great honour of joining the Innovation Acceleration Forum held at the IWA Water and Development Congress & Exhibition in Kigali, Rwanda!
Water industry professionals came to Kigali from more than 80 countries worldwide to think through the sanitation agenda, discuss obstacles, and align on goals for the entire sector.
The conference allowed innovators, the government, utility providers, city managers, and practitioners to connect and share their unique insights.
To support the aim of this great conference, the International Water Association decided to invite me along. My task was to visually capture the event, by listening closely to draw and link the key takeaways from every session throughout the day.
I tuned in virtually from the UK to practice my art of Live
Graphic Recording, and my canvas was projected in the conference room in Kigali during the breaks - the miracle of technology!
Here's a breakdown of what happened at this great event, as seen in my Visual Notes!
The First Session included a Keynote Speech and Panel Discussions on enabling Sanitation Innovation in Africa.
Some key themes and takeaways were:
Major Transformation is needed, and that requires Leadership
Time to reframe the sector, disrupt and transfer to a sustainable business model
The importance of Policies, Regulations and Partnerships emerged several times
The Second Session focused on Women- and Youth-led Sanitation Innovation Initiatives.
Representatives from 5 organizations gave presentations, sharing the great work of Pit Vidura, Global Water & Sanitation Center at AIT, CADEV, Octopizzo, and Syna Consultancy
The panellists discussed the Challenges and Opportunities faced by Youth and Women Innovators
A demonstration of Digital Technological Innovations
How we can empower marginalized communities to advance the sanitation agenda
The Third Session of IWA's Innovation Acceleration Forum focused on Funding and the Future.
Grants and Scalability - The Funding Pathways for Sanitation Initiatives
The Vision Forward
a systematic transformation is needed to move forward
these initiatives need to be facilitated by the Government but ultimately led by the Community
The Graphics Projected on the big screens between the sessions were a great success, not only did they decorate the walls of the congress room, but served as a great summary of the sessions and a touchstone for conversation while networking.
After the IWA Water and Development Congress, once all 3 Live Graphic Recording Pieces have been received and reviewed, I was commissioned by IWA to bring it all together, to create a Visual Summary of the day that takes highlights and combines all three sessions into one piece.
Here it is!
Read on to learn more about this new genre of Event Illustration: 'Visual Conference Summaries'.