Topcon sponsors WTW Filter Build event to combat global water insecurity

Topcon Positioning Systems announces its support for the global nonprofit organization Wine To Water (WTW) through sponsorship of a WTW Filter Build. The event was held during the Topcon Technical Xperience in October, bringing together distributors from around the world, including North America, Latin America, and Australia, at Topcon Positioning Systems' global headquarters in California, USA. During the event, participants assembled 200 filter kits that will be distributed globally to provide clean, potable water to approximately 2,000 people for a decade.

Water insecurity — essentially the lack of access to clean drinking water — affects an estimated two billion people worldwide, and waterborne diseases are directly responsible for over 400,000 childhood deaths globally each year. Helping alleviate that situation has been the goal of WTW founder Doc Hendley, whose talk at the 2023 Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) Annual Conference led to Topcon reaching out to the organization, according to Mike Gomes, Topcon's Vice President of Sustainability and Global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

"Topcon is a 92-year-old company and, in addition to our work centring on sustainability, one of our core values stresses the need to be a member of the worldwide community," Gomes says. "WTW aligns perfectly with that, so when we were looking for an engagement topic for this year's Topcon Technical Xperience, Doc Hendley's talk on water insecurity hit very close to home. And by the end of the filter assembly exercise, you could see the smiles on the faces of the attendees. It's not often you get an opportunity to make a life-changing impact like that. The Topcon motto ‘For Work That Matters' was demonstrated by every person in the room that day."

Tim Cox, Jr., WTW's vice president of product and innovations, who was onsite for the Topcon event, said, "Not only does Topcon have a track record for promoting sustainable practices in construction and agriculture, it also puts real credence in its CSR efforts," he said. "The filter build was just one very impactful example of that, and as the beneficiary of those efforts, we are very grateful."

When Topcon hosted its first charitable event during the inaugural Technical Xperience in 2023, it was uncertain how attendees would respond to a session unrelated to technical training. Those initial concerns have long since been set aside, according to Ron Oberlander, vice president of Topcon global professional services.

"When we saw how engaged the attendees were in the 2023 activity, which was a Habitat for Humanity Playhouse Build, we knew we wanted to provide a rewarding activity to benefit the community again this year," Oberlander said, "because Topcon solutions have a reach worldwide, however, we wanted to make sure that any event we held would be focused on giving back to the global community; that's certainly the case with Wine To Water."