Congratulations to The King’s Trust Australia alumni and defence veteran Shannon Lemanski, the first Australian ever to win a global award at the prestigious King’s Trust Awards.
Shannon was presented with the 2026 Global Sustainability Award at A King’s Trust Celebration, in partnership with TK Maxx. Shannon’s award-winning business creates water from air, cutting plastic waste and bringing safe drinking water to remote rural communities.
Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth. In this hot and hostile climate, water is precious. Shannon’s business, Aqua Ubique, tackles two problems at once: the environmental impacts of bottled water and the lack of reliable, safe tap water among remote communities.
By capturing humidity and converting it into drinking water, Shannon’s business, Aqua Ubique, replaces traditional office water coolers with onsite water generators. ‘Our systems eliminate the plastic waste, transport emissions and supply-chain footprint associated with bottled water,’ Shannon explains.
This technology has previously often been unaffordable for those communities it would benefit most, but Shannon’s business model solves that problem. For every five commercial installations, the company supplies a similar unit for a remote or regional First Nations community.
The King’s Trust Australia’s Enterprise Accelerator programme supported Shannon to turn his innovative idea into a viable business, and to secure his first customer. In May 2026, in recognition of his commitment to advancing sustainable water security, Shannon received The King’s Trust Global Sustainability Award, sponsored by Octopus Energy, at a star-studded awards ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Testing the waters
Shannon first saw the problems caused by unsafe water during an Army deployment to Papua New Guinea, and later discovered that regional and remote communities within Australia face similar challenges.
“When I learned that many remote Australian communities were dealing with contaminated tap water containing E. coli, arsenic, or uranium, the connection snapped into place,” Shannon explains.
“I realised that the same issue I saw overseas was happening at home. In some communities, bottled water costs more than soft drinks, which forces parents into impossible decisions: send their babies to daycare with formula made with unsafe tap water, or with soft drink in their baby bottle.”
Strategy, skills and sales
While most Australians have safe water on tap, the country’s vast landscape means that water infrastructure does not reach many small rural communities.
Faced with these facts, Shannon wanted to find a practical way to help, making safe water accessible to anyone, anywhere. After leaving the Army, he turned to The King’s Trust Australia’s Enterprise Accelerator programme to help him progress his idea.
“I still wanted to serve in a way that mattered, I just had no idea how to turn that into a business,” Shannon explains. ‘The Enterprise Accelerator stood out because it offered exactly what I needed at that stage: a place to learn the ropes, build the fundamentals and explore an idea with real purpose, surrounded by people who understood the reality of service and transition.”
The Trust’s Enterprise Accelerator supports young military veterans with entrepreneurial ambitions, equipping them with the skills, knowledge and networks to turn good ideas into good businesses. So far it has empowered over 1,400 participants to launch a business – from mobile coffee vans to digital consultancies.
The programme supported Shannon, now 35, to develop a customer-led strategy, and to redesign the company’s messaging, pricing and sales processes, enabling Aqua Ubique to secure their first customer.
By turning an everyday office choice into an environmental and social benefit, Shannon has created a business model that is practical, scalable and globally replicable, combining environmental responsibility, workplace wellness and community development.
