TWO water and salt innovations of the Department of Science and Technology Industrial Technology Development Institute (DoST-ITDI) were cited at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva (IEIG) held on April 17 to 21, 2024, at Palexpo, Geneva, Switzerland.

The world's largest annual event devoted exclusively to invention showcased 1,035 entries worldwide, including two from DoST-ITDI and nine from other DoST line agencies.

DoST-ITDI's Safewatrs, a mobile water disinfection system developed by engineer Dante Vergara and his team, and flavored salt and food seasoning by Dr. Annabelle Briones and her team clinched the Silver and Bronze awards, respectively.

Safewatrs is a compact, solar-powered, manually-controlled water treatment system that can augment the lack or shortage of safe drinking water during calamities and emergencies. It is useful in remote areas with few safe and clean water sources.

The system can process rainwater, spring waters, and turbid lake water and produce up to 2,000 liters of potable water within nine hours.

On the other hand, flavored/gourmet salt and food seasoning cash in on the convenience food market.

In its October 2023 report, Businesswire noted a changing lifestyle of consumers in the US, China, Japan, Canada and the Asia-Pacific as these regions demand convenience food, mostly ready-to-eat food products.

With more food-grade salts being used as flavor enhancers, the trend encourages many salt manufacturers to innovate and introduce new flavored food-grade salts. ITDI thus improved its flavored/gourmet salts to serve these markets.

For 2024, Sumaiya Al Siyabi of Oman, an innovation specialist in Ibra Scientific Exploration Center, won the grand prix of IEIG for Ecosphere.

Engineer Prima Joy Margarito and Maricar Carandang represented DoST-ITDI in the exhibition.