2021 Van 't Hoff Lecture

This year we are honored to host Dr. Doulaye Koné, Deputy Director Water, Sanitation & Hygiene at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as 2021 van’t Hoff Lecturer of the Delft Process Technology Institute. The public online lecture will take place on Thursday June 17, 2021 (7 pm CEST).

Dr. Koné has been a guest lecturer at several institutions and international societies like the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE) in Burkina Faso, the Unesco IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the International Water Association (IWA), the African Water Association (AfWA) as Program Coordinator Africa Water Operators Partnerships (WOP-Africa), and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) on a Global WOPs alliance framework initiative coordinated by UN-Habitat and implemented in Africa by AfWA and its partners (IWA, AfDB/AWF, USAID, AQUAFED).

Dr. Koné joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2011 becoming the Deputy Director for Water, Sanitation & Hygiene. Under his activity, he notably launched the “Reivent the Toilet Challenge” (RTTC) to bring sustainable sanitation solutions to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who do not have access to safe and affordable sanitation. The RTTC programs involved several institutions world-wide to develop original, scalable toilet designs and stimulate innovation in decentralized sanitation, sewage treatment, and resource recovery from urine and feces. TU Delft notably obtained a RTTC grant on the inaugural call of 2011, besides Caltech, Eawag, Loughborough University, National University of Singapore, Stanford University and the Climate Foundation, University of Kwazulu-Natal, and University of Toronto, to develop a toilet system that uses microwave technology to transform human waste into electricity.

The van’t Hoff Lecture of Dr. Koné on “Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Program – Global Growth & Opportunity” will bring us on the bridge linking science, technological innovation, economic and policy strategies to drive global sanitation measures and water access, while minimizing time to decision and implementation of scalable solutions for sustainable utility services.

We look forward to hosting you on the public lecture of Dr. Koné.