We are excited to announce the five members of the Sarphati Sanitation Challenge Jury! They all have an impressive trackrecord in the sanitation sector, and we are very happy to have them on board:
Cheryl Hicks is a senior advisor to the United Nations Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate on water, sanitation and hygiene (https://ceowatermandate.org/); a founding partner and chair of the board at ASE-INFRA Partners, investing in sanitation economy infrastructure; and board member and chair of the impact committee at Quadia Impact Finance.
From 2015-2020 Cheryl has been the inaugural Executive Director and CEO of the Toilet Board Coalition (TBC), a business-led coalition supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in the sanitation sector. While at the TBC, Cheryl initiated the Toilet Business Accelerator Programme and established the vision and innovation pathways of the Sanitation Economy.
Sasha Kramer is an ecologist and human rights advocate who has been living and working in Haiti since 2004. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology from Stanford University in 2006 and co-founded SOIL that same year (https://www.oursoil.org/), while also completing a postdoctoral research position with the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects at Stanford.
Sasha is a global advocate for the recycling of nutrients in human waste, helping others implement sustainable sanitation projects and inspiring people around the world to participate in the sanitation revolution and she is the recipient of the 2017 Sarphati Sanitation Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Aart van den Beukel, Managing Director and Founder of Safisana (https://safisana.org/), has over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience in the circular economy. In his former job he saw waste-to-resource gaining interest amongst many partners in the industry, and in 2009 he co-founded Safisana, together with Aqua for All, Royal Haskoning DHV and Rabobank.
He set up a waste to resource plant in Accra, Ghana, the first ever in West-Africa. Today Safisana serves the Ashaiman community of 50k + people with improved sanitation, generating employment, increased availability of electricity, organic fertiliser and food. Van den Beukels ambition is to turn the Safisana recycling model into a standardised approach to solve mayor sanitation, waste and nutrition problems in low- and middle income countries.
Nirjhor Rahman is the CEO of Bangladesh Angels (https://www.bdangels.co/), the country’s first angel investment network to connect innovative start-ups with smart capital via individual and institutional investors.
An Acumen Fellow, previously he was the Country Director for ygap, a social enterprise accelerator where he helped build a national venture network. He started his career in Bangladesh by leading the scale-up of a social enterprise in urban sanitation called SWEEP, which is now active in 4 cities and has served 100,000s with safe, affordable sanitation services.
Sander Mager is executive board member of the regional public water authority of Amstel, Gooi and Vecht (greater Amsterdam area). He is responsible for water quality, circular economy, energy transition, biodiversity and international cooperation (WorldWaternet, https://www.wereldwaternet.nl/en/). Sander is also an executive board member of The Dutch Water Authorities (Unie van Waterschappen) which represent the regional public water authorities on a national and international level and stimulates knowledge exchange and cooperation between its members. As Board Member he is responsible for water quality, sanitation, emissions, circular economy, aquathermia, and enforcements.