The World University Challenge is closely linked to the IFAT trade fair. Since 2015, DWA has conducts international University Challenges at the IFAT fairgrounds in Shanghai, Mumbai, Istanbul and Johannesburg. The World University Challenge is the main competition and takes place biannually at the IFAT Munich.

The competition for young academics wants to promote the next generation of Environmental engineers and at the same time make companies aware of qualified and motivated newcomers. Competitions make companies aware of young talent, so they are increasingly an instrument for personnel selection. They illustrate whether young talents are capable of mastering management challenges.

The students from University Pretoria held their own against a total of 9 teams from South Africa. They showed their skills in two disciplines:

1) IWRM – Integrated Water Resources Management

Infrastructure measures from water management, waste management and energy management have to be combined using DWA environment cards.

2) Reporting

Student teams prove their skills in researching and gathering information at the fair, focusing on a fictitious employer. The accumulated knowledge needs to be applied by writing a re­porting with a pre-defined focus.

It has become a good tradition that the winning teams of the international IFAT trade fairs are either invited to come and join the main competition „The World University Challenge“ in Munich. Par­ticipation as well as travel costs are sponsored by the Wilo- Foundation.