Water, water everywhere. But are farmers getting enough of it?

(August 2024) Recently at the UN headquarters in Geneva, the winner of a fellowship sponsored by Huawei and the ITU invented a device that may provide some answers in his native Uzbekistan. 

“Central Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world for water resources, especially irrigation water,” said Nuriddin Samatov, a Generation Connect Young Leadership Fellow.

Agriculture accounts for almost 80% of Uzbekistan’s GDP. But the “irrational distribution of water resources” can mean an unprofitable harvest for farmers, Nuriddin told Huawei Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen in a new interview for Transform Talks.

Nuriddin invented a device that measures water flow and quality. “If people install a device similar to my solution, they may know the availability of water in one year, or even the next 10 years, so they can easily allocate and distribute it properly” to farms.