2020 IWA Young Leadership Award

Renowned scientist and engineer Dr Siddhartha Roy has won the IWA Young Leadership Award (2020/22). Dr Roy acted as an industry ambassador for the IWA and the water sector in general for a two-year term. Currently Dr Roy works as an environmental engineer and postdoctoral research scientist at Virginia Tech, USA. He has conducted a range of research, primarily focused on disadvantaged communities. His most significant work in recent years has centred on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where he helped to uncover high levels of waterborne lead poisoning.

Dr. Roy’s work in raising awareness of the Flint water crisis, as co-leader of the Flint Water Study team, ultimately led to President Obama declaring a public health emergency. He has been featured on a range of leading media outlets, including the BBC, New York Times and Chicago Tribune, and has also countered misleading and bad science around Flint’s water quality in the past several years. Dr. Roy also participated in the PBS documentary ‘Poisoned Water’. He has been recognised unanimously by the IWA Young Leadership Award Committee, who noted how strong the field of nominees had been, as well as congratulating Dr. Roy. Read more about his nomination. During a plenary session at the Digital World Water Congress (click here to watch the IWA Young Leadership Award announcement), Dr Roy commented: “Fundamentally, this prize recognises scientific and humanitarian work by the Virginia Tech US Water Study Team with underserved communities like Flint, Michigan and others, to uncover unsafe water and environmental injustice.”

2018 IWA Young Leadership Award

Jacob Kwasi Amengor is the winner of the IWA Young Leadership Award 2018. As Assistant Water Quality Officer at Ghana Water, Jacob Amengor combines academic, professional and personal achievements to emerge as the most exemplary role model of his generation, a promising individual motivated to empower young water professionals within and beyond Africa.

Professionally he is an Assistant Water Quality Assurance Officer, where he is responsible for the water quality operations at Kpeve Headworks. In 2015, Jacob brought a group of young people together to start the Water Satellite Programme with the objective of sensitizing people on best practices in water and sanitation. As a result of his continuous passion in the Water Sector, he was selected as a Young Water Fellow by the Young Water Solutions and he has been equipped with both technical skills and funding to help accelerate access to clean water and sanitation in rural communities with an entrepreneurial approach.

Jacob served as the first General Secretary of the Water and Sanitation Students’ Association of Ghana. He has also been instrumental in forming the IWA Young Water Professional Chapter in Ghana and voluntarily serves as its Co-Chair. Jacob volunteers as a content creator for Siro 360 (media website), where he writes articles on environmental sustainability. He loves to mentor, inspire and motivate young people to find solutions to challenges existing in the water sector because he believes that the successful realization of the Sustainable Development Goals depends on the abilities of young people.

Jacob has secured a land as a first step of achieving his vision of setting up a water research and management institute that will focus on carrying out research studies, training young professionals on varied areas within the water sector, organizing professional development courses and engaging industries and policy makers to implement the outcomes of research studies for the sustainable development of the water and sanitation sector in Africa. Ultimately, Jacob wants to see an Africa, where access to clean water and sanitation is no longer a reserve for the privileged few; rather, a human right realised for all regardless of place, class and status.