Delta Commissioner rewards best soapbox presentation during the Hydraulic Engineering Day in Rotterdam
At the Hydraulic Engineering Day (Waterbouwdag) 2013 on 26 November, jury chair Bas Jonkman and director of the Delta Commissioner’s staff Bart Parmet awarded a prize for the best soapbox presentation. The theme of the day this year was Hydraulic Engineering and Prosperity.
A lot of attention was paid to the presentation of innovative and economically useful projects at the Hydraulic Engineering Day 2013.
Using soapbox presentations, among other things, the aim was to present innovative regional and national projects in which the benefits outweigh the costs. The jury had selected 6 of the 11 submissions to be presented on the soapbox at the Hydraulic Engineering Day.
The jury applied the following criteria:
- fits within the scope of the competition;
- level of (technical) elaboration and substantiation;
- innovation level;
- extent to which a social and economic cost-benefit analysis was taken into consideration.
Those present at the Hydraulic Engineering Day made the final decision on which idea was the best via an online vote. The winner was Hans van Stralen of Royal HaskoningDHV for his idea for innovative, foldable sluice gates aimed at realising more compact and thus less expensive sluices.
On behalf of the Delta Commissioner, the winner received a prize consisting of a half-day advisory support from three experts in order to take the project further. In addition, the prize consisted of a cheque for € 3,000 presented by jury chair Bas Jonkman on behalf of the organisers of the Hydraulic Engineering Day 2013.