Water Innovation Lab

About WIL Canada

WILCanada is an un-conference – this means the richest outcomes emerge from what the participants, facilitators and guests put into the experience

The Water Innovation Lab (WIL) Canada is a 7 Day Immersive Training near Kingston, Ontario and region to explore water innovation and leadership within the Canadian context, while building collaboration opportunities across the globe. Two days will be spent on field tours in the greater Kingston area, including community visits with the other days spent at Queen’s University Biological Station.

 

WIL develops future water leaders to think holistically, design innovatively, and communicate across sectors and generations in order to respond to our greatest water challenges. It brings together inquiring and committed young leaders from the water sector, engineering, art and design, the sciences, business, social sciences, policy and planning to build our capacity to collaborate for a resilient future. With a focus on knowledge transfer and collaborative innovation, ideas transform over the course of the Lab into prototype projects and actions.

H2O Global Leaders Training:
September 11-14, 2018

Waterlution is called upon regularly for facilitation training and the demand has reached a level that we are able to offer three-days of intensive training prior to WIL Canada 2018. In addition, as Waterlution has grown the Water Innovation Lab model around the globe, we now require the development of more talent in key regions to be the “on-the-ground” project leaders to build the network, partners and programming for future WILs. Waterlution has started to establish local hubs where year-round programming and support exists for young leaders and their water innovation research or projects. Waterlution has created the H2O global leaders training to bring a group of selected individuals together to learn from one another and be part of a supportive learning network, while also receiving specialised facilitation training.

*All individuals selected for Global Leaders Training will also attend the full WIL Canada program from September 14-21, 2018.  These H2O Global Leaders will be provided with multiple opportunities to practice their skills during WIL Canada immediately following the training.

H2O Global Training is built around these components:

We consciously design and host processes that deepen the dialogue and facilitation skills of participants.

At this training we dive into process design steps, mental frameworks to understand how to work with emergence and complexity within groups, and practical tools to support practitioners in convening and hosting meaningful conversations within their own contexts and challenges.

Learn how to design and host with:

  • Open Space Technology
  • The World Café
  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Chaordic Design / Stepping Stones
  • Organisational Paradigms
  • Theory U
  • ProAction Café

…and more

WIL Canada is built around 5 key components:

WIL Canada offers a process by which different players can come together to build new relationships for collaboration, accelerate knowledge sharing, build transferable skills, innovate and co-develop potential solutions to water challenges. Specifically, WIL Canada participants will:

1. Deep Dive in Water Challenges and Innovations

Learn about current and pressing water issues (Great Lakes region, across Canada and around the globe) from immersive field visits, resource guests and other participants. Learn from thought leaders on how to channel enthusiasm to build new initiatives and a meaningful career.

2. Become Part of a Global Network

Grow their network by connecting with thought and industry leaders as well as up-and-coming influencers in diverse fields. They join the international community of Waterlution’s Future Water Leaders after the Lab.

3. Build Capacity and Train in 21st Century Skills (Innovation, Collaboration, Understanding Complexity, Scenario Planning)

Acquire facilitation skills and practice tools to design and host meaningful dialogue with a cross-section of groups and interests and turn those conversations into meaningful action.

4. Pitch New Ideas & Solutions

Co-create innovation projects and/or collaborate on research that respond to the water challenges identified in their home contexts, or those that emerge from the Lab. Seed funding available at WIL Canada will support teams longer term.

5. Transform the System

Leave changed, and inspired to change the system. This is an experience like no other, participants will leave transformed and supported in their next step in working with water.

WIL Canada Themes

At WIL Canada, we will investigate some of the major opportunities, challenges and innovation solutions in water management across the country, including:

Themes being considered*:

  • Great Lakes significance and IWRM
  • Climate change impacts on Great Lakes
  • Indigenous traditional knowledge
  • Global water challenges
  • Water and cities
  • Rural access to drinking water
  • Wastewater and biotechnology
  • Women and water innovation

*Themes to be finalized with partners

What are Water Innovation Labs?

Waterlution’s global Water Innovation Labs are front-running, immersive leadership development experiences designed to accelerate collaborative innovation, fast-track global knowledge sharing and devise new innovations that improve water security for the planet, and support emerging leaders (20-35 yrs) to implement SDG targets connected to water in their organisations and projects. With leadership training at its core, WIL global experiences equip the next generation of young water researchers, policy-makers, and waterpreneurs with mindsets and skillsets for beyond 2020: collaboration, creativity, global-engagement, complex problem solving, and impact-oriented thinking. Our groundbreaking, cross-sector, cross-disciplinary approach has become a proven new model for global engagement, co-innovation leadership, and a catalyst for co-created change.

LEARN MORE

WILCanada 2018

H20 Global Leaders Facilitation Training

September 11-14

Water Innovation Lab Canada

September 14-21

Contact
WIL Canada

Karen Kun,

President, Waterlution

Email: karen@waterlution.org
Tel: +1 416 887 4709

Dona Geagea,

Global Lead, Water Innovation Labs

Email: dona@waterlution.org
Tel: +1 647 302 4594