Lauren Greenlee
2D Materials in Water Applications Symposium
Dresden, Germany 11 & 12 Apr 2024
Title: XPRIZE Water Scarcity prize: Driving innovation in desalination technology
First and last name: Lauren Greenlee
Affiliation: XPRIZE Foundation
Short Biography:
Lauren is currently Executive Vice President, Food, Water & Waste for the XPRIZE Foundation. Prior to joining XPRIZE, Lauren served as the Chief Technology Officer for sHYp, an early-stage startup company developing technology to produce green hydrogen from seawater sources. During her time as CTO, she built sHYp's core R&D team and directed technical strategy for sHYp’s US-UK international team. Lauren was also intimately involved in business development, from market analysis and core messaging to non-dilutive and investor-backed fundraising efforts. Lauren’s earlier work included 10+ years of leading R&D research teams across water, agriculture, and energy topics in both the US federal government and university appointments.
Lauren holds a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Certificate in Strategic Leadership from the Pennsylvania State University. She is currently finishing her M.B.A. from the University of Iowa and has a passion for life-long learning across business, technology, and how people work together.
Abstract:
XPRIZE Water Scarcity is a $119 million, 5-year prize designed to drive widespread access to clean water by creating reliable, sustainable, and affordable seawater desalination systems. Competing teams will develop new desalination technologies to unlock access to Earth’s ocean water year round, helping drive a world where clean water is equitably and sustainably abundant, and enabling people and the environment to prosper.
Even though 70% of our planet is covered with vast bodies of water, everyone on Earth experiences some level of water stress. By 2025, an alarming two-thirds of our population will grapple with severe water shortages. Existing desalination methods are expensive, inaccessible to many communities, and environmentally unsustainable. Without improvement, they will be inadequate to keep up with increasing global water demand, leading to increasingly serious water stress and scarcity issues worldwide.
XPRIZE Water Scarcity is a call to action, challenging teams to harness the power of cutting-edge technology, reimagining systems, methods, and materials, to make clean water more accessible for all. Together, we will redefine the landscape of affordable and sustainable desalination on a global scale. In this talk, I will give an overview of XPRIZE’s mission and philosophy around the power of incentive prize competitions to accelerate change and innovation. In addition, I will explain more details about the prize tracks and associated opportunities for membrane researchers to get involved.