UAE firm produces water to irrigate floating farms among 36 organizations to get Expo Live funding – News

36 Grassroots Social Entrepreneurs from 34 Countries Join Expo Live Innovation Program

36 grassroots social entrepreneurs from 34 countries joined the Expo Live innovation program. These lead to creative climate-related interventions covering biodiversity and ocean restoration, air quality, transport and carbon, food security, waste, energy, water, finance and protection of vulnerable communities.

The global innovators were selected from more than 1,200 applicants from 123 countries, including a UAE-based organization that produces water for irrigating floating farms. Manhat was founded in 2019 with a vision to provide sustainable water solutions for food security in coastal communities. Its innovative technology mimics the natural water cycle to sustainably produce water from open water surfaces with no carbon footprint or saltwater rejection, which can be used to irrigate crops on floating farms and provide sustainable solutions for coastal communities. It worked with Abu Dhabi Ports and successfully completed their first prototyping phase.

Other global innovators include a forest restoration project in Nepal; a carbon capture solution from Finland that generates energy from waste; an Indian company that produces a carbon-negative building material called ‘Agrocrete’; and a Burundi-based business that turns banana waste into packaging for the environment; collaborating with Iraqi organizations on solar and cloud computing to create alternative energy sources.

The latest cycle of the program will provide funding and technical guidance to 36 selected projects, known as Global Innovators, with the opportunity to present their ideas at the COP28 summit in Dubai Expo City later this year.

Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and CEO of Dubai Expo City Authority, said: “In ensuring a sustainable future for our planet, we must act quickly, and we must act now. As we will throughout 2020 Witnessed firsthand during Expo Dubai, grassroots and community organizations are on the front lines of climate change and their creative solutions are ripe for making a real, positive contribution. In the UAE’s ‘Year of Sustainability’, Dubai Expo City is proud to be able to Continue to support Expo Live global innovators, connecting them with climate decision makers, catalyzing collaborative action and creating opportunities for greater impact.”

Expo Live has supported 176 global innovators from 90 countries across all six cycles to date. The program’s first five cycles have positively impacted 5.8 million people globally, restored 36 million hectares, offset 190,000 tonnes of CO2 and saved 6.3 million liters of water.