Prague, June 26 (CTK) – The Czech government approved today participation in Expo 2020 in Dubai, where it will have its own pavilion and present a technology of water production from the air based on a blueprint by Jiri Frantisek Potuznik who will be appointed Expo general commissioner.
Potuznik also headed the Czech participation in Expo in Milan in 2015. Five years earlier, he was marketing director in Shanghai.
“We want to present a system that is able to produce water from the air with the help of solar energy without need for other energies,” Potuznik said previously.
He said he wants to cooperate on the project with the Czech Technical University (CVUT) and the Czech Science Academy (CAV).
“We know that we are capable of building such a system and if it goes well, this would be not only presentation of Czech know-how, but the patent would be kept by the CVUT and the school could use it in various applications in the future,” Potuznik said.
He said water is not in great supply anywhere and Expo will be held in a region that depends on supplies from abroad.
Expo 2020 will be held in the region of the Middle East, Africa and south Asia for the first time. Its major theme will be Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.
The cost of the pavilion and the exhibition is put at 250 million crowns.
“The budget counts with 160 million crowns, 70 million have been left from Milan and I will secure 20 million from private sources like in Milan,” Potuznik said.
Further dozens of millions are to be invested in the surroundings of the building and accompanying programmes.
Water was also a key theme of the Czech pavilion in Milan. It was assembled of recyclable modules made by the Koma firm in Vizovice, south Moravia.
($1=23.530 crowns)
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