Current is powered by partnerships, but cultivating those partnerships requires real resources to support people and programs. We are excited to share two new grant awards that will help us propel the blue economy in 2020 and beyond.
To start, Current was awarded first-time general operating funding from the McDougal Family Foundation to support our work in strengthening the Great Lakes economy and environment by accelerating water technologies. General operating support is critical for all nonprofits, but especially valuable to small startups like Current, who frequently need running room to test new strategies and build new programs. We are excited to partner with the McDougal Family Foundation and its grantees as we work to build a more sustainable, intelligent, and equitable water future in the greater Chicago region.
Next, we were thrilled to learn last month that Chicago, led by Northwestern University’s Center for Water Research, will anchor a new $27.6M U.S.-Israeli water innovation consortium funded by the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation’s U.S.-Israel Energy Center grant. Current is proud to be among the implementation partners in this consortium, which is focused on the Energy-Water Nexus and aims to develop and commercialize water technology in the following areas: energy-efficient water supply, wastewater reuse and recovery, and water-energy systems. The expectation is “market-moving” technologies that will “strengthen our energy security…and economies.” Of the larger $27.6M grant, $9.2M is dedicated to the development of water-energy technologies over the next 5 years.
See the full press release from Northwestern and learn more about how the BIRD Foundation brings U.S. and Israeli-based organizations together to solve energy problems here.
Consortium Leaders include: Northwestern University, BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). Consortium Partners include: Argonne National Laboratory, Yale University, DuPont Water Solutions, Evoqua Water Technologies, Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Inc. (HRSD), Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), Mekorot, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Cyclopure, Inc., Fluence Corporation, Galilee Society.
