The OU WaTER Center kicked off its second International WaTER Conference on Monday with keynote lectures and presentations on combining water technology and business.

The OU WaTER Center — Water Technologies for Emerging Regions Center — focuses on providing resources to under-served areas by hosting the international conference of speakers, organizer Robert Nairn said.

“This is a series of seven invited presentations that brought in experts from seven different fields,” Nairn said.

This year, the conference adopted a theme for its lectures — synergy at the interface, Nairn said.

“The idea is to combine people in technology with people doing behavior change,” Nairn said. “We are reaching the social sciences now as well, not just the hard sciences.”

Monday’s speakers included experts Peter Winch, Dennis Lettenmaier and John Oldfield giving keynote speeches on areas such as climate change and its effects on water, behavioral changes necessary to provide cleaner water and ways to encourage the government to be more involved in water technologies.

The center also awarded its OU International Water Prize to Ben Fawcett, an engineer from Australia working throughout the globe to improve water technologies.

One of Tuesday’s keynote speakers includes OU doctorate student Laura Brunson, who researches clean water technologies for a village in Ethiopia and was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for her research, she said.

Brunson also teaches social entrepreneurship classes at OU, which is relevant to the conference’s themes because it teaches business students how to apply developing technologies, she said. She will talk about her research and social entrepreneurship themes in sessions Tuesday morning.

“It teaches that you can do these entrepreneurial ventureships you’re really excited about and not just make money off them,” Brunson said. “You can also do something crucially good with them and help solve problems. It’s really amazing to see the transformations from, ‘Oh, I want to make a bunch of money,’ to, ‘Oh, I can make money and do something useful for the world.’”

Overall, about 200 researchers will attend or present at the conference, representing 35 countries and six continents, Nairn said.

Students are welcome to attend the lectures and presentations for free, but they are required to pay a registration fee for other perks of the conference such as meals, Nairn said.

GO AND DO: International WaTER Conference
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday
WHERE: Thurman J. White Forum Building