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MARC WALRAVEN: My name is Marc Walraven,
Senior Advisor, Storm Surge Barriers, within Rijkswaterstaat
and also the co-founder of the I-STORM network.
All storm surge barriers, not only in the Netherlands, but worldwide,
are unique in design and maintenance operations.
So, we can learn a lot from each other's experiences
to protect the environment and people behind them against flooding.
A lot of new people will be working on those barriers,
so we have to pass on knowledge to new generations.
I met my colleague Andy Batchelor,
who is leading the Thames Barrier in London, in 2005.
We went to a bar that evening,
and we discovered we had so many things in common,
challenges with all the knowledge we have in our organisation,
that we thought: we have to cooperate one way or the other.
I-STORM is the international network of specialists
who work on storm surge barriers.
It gives them the opportunity to learn from each other
and to share their knowledge in circumstances
in which trust is very important, and in an informal way,
which makes it even easier to share knowledge and expertise.
It's interesting that a lot of countries can learn from our experiences
regarding maintenance operations when they build new barriers.
But we can learn from them as well, as they use new techniques, innovations,
which will help us, for the future of the Netherlands,
to adapt our storm surge barriers.
I think that the value of I-STORM is that it's so informal.
People really get the feeling that I-STORM is trustworthy,
they can share knowledge and expertise
and they even feel that they can share their problems.
That's really helpful in learning from each other on a global basis.
The main objective of I-STORM is
that it's available for storm surge barriers specialists,
that they can share their knowledge and expertise,
not only now, but also in the future.
It's not about growth,
it's just for them to share more in-depth knowledge
than that the network has to grow.
I-STORM will be needed even more in the future,
with more and more countries that will build storm surge barriers
and will have to maintain and operate them.
So, we will have the challenge to share that knowledge with new generations.
It's interesting to see that even universities are joining us now.
And we also have I-STORM Next Generation now,
so younger people are really enthusiastic
in sharing knowledge, and expertise as well, with us.
When I see what we started with a beer in 2005,
and now seeing how many people and specialists are interacting,
and even I-STORM Next Generation is starting with younger people,
it's really, really good to see.
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