The Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative selected WaHa as one of 21 qualifying teams in Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture, the first competition in its Al Miyah Challenge program. Announced on September 11, 2025, the qualifying teams were chosen from 846 registered teams spanning 54 countries, with the 21 qualifiers representing 13 countries across five continents.
The challenge, launched in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), ASPIRE, and Silal Food and Technology, carries a prize purse of AED 8 million (approximately USD 2.2 million). It seeks solutions that reduce water consumption in agriculture while maintaining or increasing crop yields, ready for field application in the UAE and scalable to other arid, water-scarce regions.
WaHa qualified with a proposal built on the WaHa Vaporator®, which produces pure water and inexpensive dry air from the atmosphere, even in extremely dry conditions. Applied to controlled-environment agriculture, the system harvests water from the air while supporting greenhouse cooling, reducing the water and energy costs that constrain farming in arid climates.
Read the full announcement from the Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative, and see the complete list of qualifying teams.
