Round-table: The influence of New Media to solve Environmental Problems

Overview

The key-note speeches and the talk-show session revealed diverging perspectives regarding the influence of new media to solve environmental problems. Moreover, the audience had a myriad of questions and comments for the speakers to answer. Therefore, this session was thought of as a space for interactive discussion to draw preliminary conclusions about the topic of the 2010 Forum on Environmental Governance. With a little bit of humour and outstanding moderation skills, MEG alumnus Pritam Salian, steered an enriching exchange of concerns, ideas and opinions. 

Members of the audience did not hesitate take part in the Round-table discussion

About the Moderator

Pritam Salian completed the MEG program in 2009. He hails from India and has his basic training and work experience in the field of Industrial construction. He is also the founding member of the student NGO Y.U.P.P.I.E.S (Youth Undertaking to Promote Peoples Interest in Environment and Society) in his home town Nasik, India. Prit has also worked on several projects with the NGO “Villages” that conducted programs in rain water harvesting, water supply, sanitation and rural electrification in villages around Nasik.

After specializing in water and sanitation engineering in the Netherlands, he has worked extensively with European environmental consultancies developing water supply and sanitation master plans for EU insertion countries (Serbia and Bosnia). During his MEG program, he focused on the topic of Water Governance and did his internship with the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Sciences (EAWAG) working on decentralized water supply & sanitation Institution and capacity building. While in EAWAG he produced a web based costing tool for low cost sanitation technologies for use in rural and peri urban areas of developing countries. He wrote his Master thesis “Water Governance in Zambia: the case study of the Kafue River Basin” for ETH Zurich.

His main interests lie in rural development, sustainable cities and urban water management and cooking!