A de facto albeit temporary global water village, the Symposium offers the chance for young professionals and students of water issues to rub shoulders and cross pollinate with seasoned water buffaloes (as mainstream water experts are sometimes known) from around the world.

Some of the participants– like Mustaphia Bukar, director of water supply and quality control for Nigeria-- are here for the plenary session of the Global Water Forum taking place late in the week, a follow-up to the Second World Water Forum that took place at The Hague in the Netherlands last March.

Others, like Evelia Avila who traveled with three students and their chemistry teachers from Mexico, are here for one of the various international awards recognizing important water work that are given out during the week. Yarissa Richmond, who works for the World Bank-funded Water and Sanitation Program out of New Delhi, is here to network with others about sanitation-issues.

And I am here in part out of curiosity about the event, which has become the premiere annual gathering for water experts and enthusiasts, but specifically to present about a water related project involving a website about the Boulder Creek Watershed during the breakout workshop sessions on Education. The workshop has the overarching title of "Making Water Everyone's Business" and the title of my presentation has the rather dry and academic title of "BASIN.org: a case study on the use of information technology in developing local water networks." (See www.basin.org.)