CWA is growing the water economy workforce through active collaboration with our partners. From corporate expansion and manufacturing to high school maritime and tech education programs, our partners are creating new jobs and utilizing a workforce trained in water technology fields.
CWA takes an approach of economic development that is blended — technology based economic development. So we work, of course, with corporates, but also at that table are our government partners, as well as our research partners, and we wouldn’t be here without them. They’re crucial and key.
Starting with our research partners, our founding universities include several R1’s including Case Western Reserve University — Incredible IoT work. We’re going deeper and deeper into digital water — explosive growth rates in digital water — and having a partner that specializes with researchers who understand the nexus of digital water into the home and of digital water into the utility. But also, we’re the home of the Cleveland Clinic; Digital water into health is just an amazing topic. And, of course, Cleveland State, Kent State, Ohio State, and the Ohio SEAGrant program, and many other Ohio universities (outside of Ohio as well that are part of our consortium).
We also work from an R&D perspective with some of our government agencies and big research labs. That includes NASA Glenn. I think we were one of the first, what’s known as a water cluster, to have a Space Act agreement with NASA in the country. You may say like, “Wow! NASA is space… what are you doing with a Space Act agreement?” Well, we have done a lot of interesting work based on their research. We can pull technology developed for human space flight, such as water and water reuse for a Mars mission, and apply that here to industry, apply it to homes for water reuse systems. You’d be shocked at how much great intellectual property there is at our research institutions at the government level that can be licensed out to some of our manufacturers and some of our innovators.
We also appreciate working with state agencies, including the Ohio EPA. We’ve done quite a few efforts with them around trialing and evaluating technical solutions. This is primarily around one of our big concerns which is nutrient pollution. So looking at everything from de-watering around animal farms, all the way through to trialing different solutions for nutrients with both corn and with soybean fields.
CREDITS
2024
.svg)
.webp)
