The video captures a informal panel session at Expo 2020's Food For Futures event where a moderator prompts each participant to stand, introduce themselves, describe their organization, and share their favorite dessert. The speakers include: Mark Tester of Red Sea Farms, a plant scientist focused on developing salinity‑tolerant crops; Wabi' Al‑Shawa of Epic Total Water Solutions, who showcases a sand‑based hydroponic subsurface irrigation system that runs on solar power and can reclaim water; Khalil Ammar, program leader at the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), who works on biosaline agriculture, treated‑wastewater reuse, and resource‑sustainable farming in marginal lands; and Muhammad Badawi, an Egyptian soil‑science professor managing Emirates Biofertilizer Factory and Emirates Environmental Solutions, which produce organic fertilizers and operate waste‑to‑energy facilities. The discussion interleaves light‑hearted dessert talk (chocolate, tiramisu, knafeh, umm ali) with brief technical overviews of each speaker’s work, highlighting innovative approaches to water scarcity, salinity management, and sustainable food production in arid regions.
Chapters
Out of Iceland?
What's
a good Icelandic dessert?
Oh, like cake.
You're sly. That one looks pretty good too.
Oh, chocolate cake. We got one of the best chocolates in the world.
All right, thank you very much. How do you say thank you in Icelandic?
Takk for det.
There you go. Can you stand up, tell us your name? Where are you from? A little about your company, your favorite dessert.
Okay, I'm Mark Tester. I'm from Australia, UK, Saudi Arabia. I'm from planet Earth. And my favorite— and I'm from Red Sea Farms, and I— what do I do? I'm a plant scientist working on salinity tolerance of crops in particular. And my favorite dessert, I just love chocolate.
Just chocolate?
Chocolate. But I guess crème brûlée in France.
Just in France?
Well, they do it very well.
They do it pretty good at Paul, by the way. Have you been to Paul? They do a good crème brûlée, just FYI. Can you do me a favor? Stand up, tell us who you are, where you're from, a little about your company, and your favorite dessert. Okay.
Let's start with my favorite dessert first. It's tiramisu.
Tiramisu?
Okay, it's my favorite without question. I am— my name is Wabi' Al-Shawa. I am from Palestine and also from the UK, and I represent Epic Total Water Solutions, which is a water management company based in the United States, and I'm an entrepreneur trying to set up the company operations in the Middle East.
Got it. So you're working with a company Creating the division out here?
In a way, and yet exploring other avenues in water management.
You're an entrepreneur, you always look for opportunity.
Of course.
So you got an actual—
Anything to contribute to alleviating the water burden.
I love it. And what do you got right here in front of us? What is that?
So what we have here is a subsurface— it's actually a sand hydroponic apparatus which is used to deliver subsurface irrigation and drainage. And essentially by feeding the water from underneath the surface, you basically minimize evaporation and allow the plants to take the nutrients and the water that they need because ultimately they're more intelligent than humans and therefore you minimize water loss.
Do you have water there to actually show it working? Is that what you're doing?
Well, I mean, it relies on sand, so we're talking about unlocking the wealth of sand and sand being in abundance in our part of the world, it makes total sense to leverage on its usability by capillary— showing the capillary rise dynamics. So you basically pour the water in, in the chamber, and as water goes up the gravity trap, flows out, you begin to have lateral flow. Because of course, unfortunately, when I was traveling This was dislodged. The gravel and the sand were supposed to create 2 neat plies, but because of the road, it actually mixed the sand with the gravel.
So what's the unique IP of that? What makes that unique? I don't understand.
The IP of this is it's a highly engineered perforated chamber, which means that you can put any type of liquid in there and it will never, ever clog. Never. It interfaces with gravel and sand and The fact that it works with quicksand means that you can essentially deploy it anywhere, anyplace, anytime. And it runs on solar, which means because it's a low-energy system, you can literally have one solar panel and literally feed the water inside. And the beauty about this, it actually captures it. It reclaims water. And this is something that the Middle East hasn't quite looked at, which is serious mass-scale water reclamation.
I don't know about that. We'll discuss that in a moment. Yeah, appreciate it. Stand up, tell us who you are, where you're from, and of course your favorite dessert. I think we have two Palestinians together, right? Yeah, we are both Palestinians. There is a big line, by the way, for the Palestinian Pavilion over here. Yeah, really long next to Saudi Arabia. It's massive.
Yeah, it looks great. I think we all agree. Yeah. So my name is Khalil Ammar. I am program leader of sustainable natural resources management at Iqba, and Also principal scientist in hydrology. So Iqba is an international center for biosaline agriculture where we work on advising the people and the farmers in marginal areas, we call it, where conventional agriculture can't work well. So like with good water and good soil. So we work like with Dr. Marks on salinity, on low quality water like treated wastewater, drainage water, all types of water, how to increase the agricultural production and sustain the different resources that we have.
Excellent. What's your favorite dessert?
Knafeh, of course.
Is it?
Yeah.
Of course. I am ashamed. Yeah, you really— you are not a real true Palestinian. Please tell us, what is your name, where are you from, and your favorite dessert?
My name is Muhammad Badawi. I am professor of soil science. I am Egyptian, and I'm here since 25 years. Wow. I'm managing Emirates Biofertilizer Factory, which is supplying 50% market share of organic fertilizer and Dubai fertilizer in Emirates. And also I'm managing another company called Emirates Environmental Solutions, which is mainly interested in waste-to-energy.
Favorite dessert?
My favorite dessert is umm ali. Everybody knows umm ali.
