The agreement signing ceremony was started at 8:30 am in committee room of PCRWR Head Office Islamabad. Dr. Hifza Rasheed gave welcome statement for AquAffirm team (Dr. David Sarphie CEO AquAffirm Ltd. and Dr. Hanadi Nixon Chief Scientist, AquAffirm Ltd.).
After round of introduction from the participants, Dr. David provided an overview of the AquAffirm activities in Pakistan. He further deliberated that the World Bank recently approved the “Punjab Rural Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Project”. A vital component of the project is developing a robust water quality monitoring program for Punjab, this includes testing and mapping of arsenic and incorporating mitigation options in the infrastructure and operational designs. In support of these priorities, precision field-testing methods are required. The AquAffirm tool comprising AquAffirm-As™ arsenic sensor and AquAffirm™ cloud-based software platform delivers such a system, benefitting local users. This visit is focused to launching and validation of this tool in Pakistan by undertaking field testing of arsenic and real-time mapping in 13 tehsils of Pakistan (districts: Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Multan, Jhang, Sargodha, Lodhran, Khushab, Chakwal).
Dr. Muhammad Ashraf Chairman PCRWR welcome the guests in Pakistan and in PCRWR and expected that the activity of the AquAffirm for rapid sensor based testing of Arsenic will benefit our researchers and decision makers for timely response to the problem of groundwater Arsenic contamination in the country. After this, Agreement was signed between the two parties (Chairman PCRWR & Dr. David Sarphei). At the end Dr. David Sarphei explained the working principal of the sensor based field testing kit and previous validation activity in Bangladesh. Dr. Hifza Rasheed Director General Water Quality briefed on the overview of the deliverables of PCRWR under the agreement. The ceremony ended with presenting Souvenirs, group photo followed by tea
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