Federal Crowdsourcing Webinar Series, Episode 13: Securing Water for Food’s Crowdsourcing Culture

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Over the last nine years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has organized 11 Grand Challenges for Development. These programs bring together governments, foundations, and the private sector to improve global development problems. The latest grand challenge, Securing Water for Food (SWFF), recently published their final report detailing the processes and culture that made the program such a success.

By ensuring that the entrepreneurs and scientists behind groundbreaking new approaches are getting the support they need to apply and expand their solutions around the world, Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development has helped farmers around the world since 2013 to grow more food using less water, enhance water storage, and improve the use of saline water and soil to produce food.

In this webinar, Dr. Ku McMahan discusses the culture, program management, and outcomes of SWFF. He will be sharing how SWFF’s process for finding and scaling new water and agriculture solutions helped 7 million farmers and their families produce 6.8 million tons of food and save 19 billion liters of water.

Presenter

At USAID, Dr. Ku McMahan serves as team lead for Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development in the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID. He received his Ph.D. in environmental sciences and an M.P.H. in environmental health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under NSF and EPA STAR Fellowships. He received a B.A. in environmental sciences and policy. In addition, he developed a simple, low-cost water quality test for developing countries and emergency situations. Ku was recently a program executive officer for the USAID WA-WASH program in GLOWS and assistant professor of research at Florida International University.

Related Links

• Securing Water For Food: A Grand Challenge for Development
• Water and Energy for Food

This webinar is hosted by Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development (SWFF) and Digital.gov. SWFF worked with innovators to scale solutions for water-agricultural challenges in developing countries and emerging economies.