CWA 2025 Innovation Summit

[00:00:00] Samantha Martin: Samantha Martin, the communications director for Cleveland Water Alliance, and we're so glad to have you on this webinar this morning. If you have any questions throughout, feel free to drop it in the Q&A. also let us know where you're calling in, in the chat, we have folks calling in from all over the world.

[00:00:26] Samantha Martin: Let us know where you're at today. and it is my pleasure to introduce Cleveland Water Alliance's President and executive Director Brian Stubbs to kick us off.

[00:00:37] Bryan Stubbs: Thank you, Sam, and thanks everyone for joining us today for CWAs 2025 Innovation Summit. We have folks joining from all over the world and we're certainly proud of our global partnerships, and

[00:00:52] Bryan Stubbs: our relationships. Also, what's really nice is with the team that we put together for you today, quite a few of them, I've actually seen more in person this year than I've seen them on virtual, and I gotta say that's most welcome. Especially those who I just saw a week and a half ago on Aquatech.

[00:01:09] Bryan Stubbs: I see PureTerra as a good example of that. And thanks for having us at your wonderful reception. Look, our partners throughout Europe and Asia really help us connect to exciting technology that the US needs. You know, we're taking this perspective of a lot of our partners, utilities, industrials, others are really telling us this is what's keeping them up at night and just this ecosystem globally of innovators trying to solve this.

[00:01:36] Bryan Stubbs: Whether it's somebody at a research lab, at a university, or one of our publicly traded global brands. It's just, it's really exciting and you know, look, I know it's turbulent times, but there's still tremendous demand for the US market, and we're proud of our soft landing here into the US market.

[00:01:54] Bryan Stubbs: When I look at right now, two examples from South Korea one being TechWin and their onsite generation of hypochloride a $6 million pilot with Avon Lake Regional Water. And the fact that they've been here, they're coming here and setting up for manufacturing in the US is a good example of how that can work for our big hard tech components.

[00:02:16] Bryan Stubbs: And I look at somebody like WaveTalk also out of South Korea that's doing incredible work validating their technology with a sensor on a chip. So, exciting times. One thing I hope everybody kinda leaves with is how expansive our network is. you know, not only around the world and within the Great Lakes region as well.

[00:02:37] Bryan Stubbs: And we're really grateful, we're lucky to be doing this work. And one of those partners that's come to our attention and really developed just a fun partnership over this last year, is Badger Meter. And Badger Meter is sponsoring our innovation summit, which Brad we're eternally grateful for.

[00:02:55] Bryan Stubbs: But also place matters. And when Brad initially reached out to our team just wanting to get more information and told me point blank, he's like, I just wanna get on a plane and come and hang in with you guys. That's, no small feat in this day and age. And it just showed me how serious they are about driving innovation.

[00:03:15] Bryan Stubbs: So with that in mind, Badger Meter, they've been in this industry for over a century. They continue to evolve with the changing water needs. And you look at just water stress increasing at an, at an increasing rate. As the economists say we need companies like Badger Meter.

[00:03:34] Bryan Stubbs: So with that, I'd like to introduce Brad Lane, manager of Utility Solutions at Badger Meter. Brad, thanks for joining us.

[00:03:41] Brad Lane: Hey, thanks Brian. And appreciate those, those kind words. Yeah. Badger. We’re really proud and excited to sponsor this Innovation Summit and the Innovator Spotlight series, which starting today, we're gonna showcase a lot of cool technology from around the world.

[00:03:56] Brad Lane: The Cleveland Water Alliance, how you guys bring together all these industry leaders to focus on managing, protecting water resources. That's been a mission of Badger Meter since our inception. It's actually since 1905, a hundred and twenty years. So anyone on the call and around the world was familiar with Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where we're headquartered out of, we went to market with the first frostproof meter, believe it or not, which is really important about 5, 6 months a year in the Midwest here.

[00:04:23] Brad Lane: So, as a market leader we Badger Meter, we provide solutions across municipal, utility, commercial, industrial sectors, helping 'em all optimize water, reduce waste, and, and obviously maximize revenue as well. So we launched our suite of Blue Edge, smart Water Solutions at ACE this year in Anaheim in 2024.

[00:04:44] Brad Lane: and that's a very comprehensive smart water software suite and solutions suite where everything from water management, including measurement, communication data, data analytics, smart water, water quality and ongoing support. So we really look forward to expanding our partnership with CWA.

[00:05:05] Brad Lane: We love what you're doing, and I definitely invite all the attendees to learn more about our upcoming innovator Spotlight session. So with that, Brian, back to you, sir.

[00:05:16] Bryan Stubbs: I appreciate that, Brad. And again, thanks for your support. I see this as just the beginning of a long journey and looking forward to working with you and your team over the coming decade.

[00:05:25] Bryan Stubbs: Yeah. So let's, let's get right into it. Our innovation team has been hard at work these past few years, expanding our test bed infrastructure for those maybe new to us I encourage you after this session to, to reach out to the team to learn more about this. You know, I think it's been kind of a game changing platform and approach to decreasing the time to market for a lot of water-based technology.

[00:05:50] Bryan Stubbs: And so given that we're anxious and glad to share some of these opportunities, some of these really cool innovators from throughout the world that we've been working with. And you're gonna hear insights from experts, industry leaders, and really those innovating the smart water space.

[00:06:06] Bryan Stubbs: So I'm, I'm a wonk for this stuff and I'm kind of excited to hear some of this because things are moving so fast and I'm in and out, left and right, and this is my chance to also catch up on what the team's been doing. So, looking forward to hearing about that, hearing about the discussion for a few of you on the call.

[00:06:26] Bryan Stubbs: You know, as a reminder, we have our freshwater innovation fund, our $25 million seed fund. I know we've got some of our committed LPs on the call today, and also some potential LPs. And this is just a really great opportunity to get you to understand how wide this water economy sector is. So with that, let's get rolling.

[00:06:46] Bryan Stubbs: I'm really fortunate to be surrounded by an incredible team. And when it comes to innovation that starts with our head of innovation and clusters, Ebie Holst, just a, a true champion of  the water innovation sector, a true champion of what we're building in Cleveland and just somebody that always makes us aim high and, and to do more.

[00:07:07] Bryan Stubbs: So with that, I'm just really pleased. Really, really pleased to introduce Ebie Holst. Ebie, take it away.

[00:07:14] Ebie Holst: Thanks, Brian. Thanks so much. Yes we have a really good time here on the Cleveland Water Alliance team, and I'm so excited to welcome all of you to this specific discussion around, getting faster insights to the market, and that's what this is all about.

[00:07:33] Ebie Holst: Before I jump in on a little bit of background of Cleveland Water Alliance in this space, I just wanna encourage everybody to say where they're coming, calling in from, into our chat. And I'm looking forward to some Q&A engagement with all of you after we have our discussion. So let's get going.

[00:07:57] Ebie Holst: So we're gonna talk about first, Why CWA, why are, why are we really looking to host this discussion and overview of some of the things that we have going on in this particular space of faster insights? And we're gonna talk about the state of water technology and why the industry needs faster insights with some experts in the fields.

[00:08:26] Ebie Holst: And then we're gonna jump into some innovator insights and a lot of what we're gonna talk about here, what are some of the challenges of innovating in this space? And, teeing that up also for the Spotlight Series, where we're gonna do some additional deeper dives on specific technologies. So let's get going.

[00:08:47] Ebie Holst: Destination Nation, Cleveland Water Alliance. So we are an Ohio based water cluster. this is a term that's used much more in the international market than oftentimes in the US market. But that basically means that we work with all kinds of different players in different sectors, from academia to public utilities, to private industry.

[00:09:15] Ebie Holst: We're located on the Great Lakes, and we accelerate innovation to an increasingly water stressed world. We work with about a hundred or more industry partners, utilities and research institutions, and we meet with 250 to 300 innovators every year from really across the spectrum. We're talking about faster insights today and that includes a number of different innovators that we work with, but

[00:09:49] Ebie Holst: We really see innovators from across the spectrum, including, even though we're sitting on the shores of the Great Lakes we see companies that are working in desal. We see companies that are working in, filtration and, and all kinds of different technologies energy and, and water nexus.

[00:10:09] Ebie Holst: So we see a lot and a key part of what we do is to accelerate those innovations to market. We have a few ways that we do that. One is our Open Innovation Challenge program, and the focus of this is that we really try to put a spotlight on where there's a gap in the market. So there's a need for some type of solution.

[00:10:36] Ebie Holst: There's a challenge that just hasn't yet found an efficient way to address the issue. And so by putting a spotlight on it, we really encourage innovators from around the world to come up with ideas and we know when it starts that, they may not be anything more than ideas. And so we try to support taking an idea and moving it into prototyping.

[00:11:03] Ebie Holst: And then so on, when, when we have an innovation challenge that's industry specific, we also have our accelerator test beds and piloting options. So, this really grew out of an understanding that innovators can only get so far in the lab. You develop something and you trial it under some controlled conditions.

[00:11:27] Ebie Holst: But we really try to help provide real world conditions, that enable not only insights on how a product needs to evolve, but oftentimes user feedback, which can make something then easier to adopt within the market. We provide funding and partner support and services, so it can be, you know. You need to find a new IP attorney.

[00:11:57] Ebie Holst: We can help you find and guide you to find the right resources to help with that. We work with, we have our own seed funds, that is, in fundraising right now that Brian mentioned, but we also work with a range of other players that provide funding into innovation technologies and additional services.

[00:12:21] Ebie Holst: And then we also provide some market exposure. So that's a little bit about what we're kicking off here with the Spotlight series is there's some technologies we see that we're really excited about and we wanna introduce them to players in the market that may be interested. And then finally, as companies grow and they're ready to really start manufacturing, we can connect organizations with manufacturers and distributors to help you get into the market.

[00:12:53] Ebie Holst: So a little bit about where we're located. I know as Sam mentioned, we've got people calling in from all over the world. So right here in the middle of, the right hand side of the US is the state of Ohio. That's where we're based. And we sit on the Great Lakes. Great Lakes make up about 21% of the Earth's surface freshwater, 90% of the US freshwater supply.

[00:13:23] Ebie Holst: And on the southernmost lake here is Lake Erie. That's where Cleveland sits. And for those of you, on the metric system that's, the lake area is just a little bit smaller than the country of Belgium. So that's a good piece of trivia, for putting things in perspective. Lake Erie supports about 11 million drinking water residents.

[00:13:51] Ebie Holst: So we have utilities all around Lake Erie that are drawing water from the lake and providing them to customers. And of course, it's also a huge center for a range of tourist and commercial activities. So Lake Erie specifically is the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes. It's the most vulnerable to different dynamics around the lake.

[00:14:17] Ebie Holst: So we've got agriculture, we have industry with maritime activities, and because it's the shallowest, it also is most influenced by things that can go wrong. And as we're also seeing some changes in the overall climate surrounding the region, we're seeing some warming temperatures. We're seeing more harmful algal blooms.

[00:14:44] Ebie Holst: And so that backdrop is really what pushed CWA into a more proactive kind of faster insights frame of mind. So we started to look at how we enable a faster, more agile response. And one of those things is to be able to put in place devices that can do real time sensing. And to do that, we also needed to ensure that those devices could send a signal.

[00:15:17] Ebie Holst: To send that information to the internet. And with that in mind, we've put in place over 7,700 square miles of telecommunications coverage over the Lake Erie Basin. That's a picture of some of our actual tower climbers. And we also deploy hundreds of IOT devices every year so that we're enabling monitoring of all kinds of different parameters and providing that information to a wide range of stakeholders.

[00:15:52] Ebie Holst: So we now, with the data that we provide, are now the most digitally connected large freshwater body in the world. And this continues to grow. So we are adding more devices every day. We're adding more data supports into this mix. And we're also leveraging everything that I just described as a test bed.

[00:16:18] Ebie Holst: So we're able to host technologies from all over the world to come and trial their technologies in creeks or ponds or, out in the middle of the lake or at a beach or on the side of a ship, potentially as well as some of the things that support iot technologies, like data hosting, telemetry technologies are, a big interest, all the way through AI and predictive analytics are things that we can enable with this test bed infrastructure.

[00:16:52] Ebie Holst: So that's a little bit about CWA and, and why we're in the mix. But now let's really jump into the topic at hand about faster insights for a water stressed world. You know, we're seeing water stress everywhere. We're seeing it on the rise. We're seeing more storm activities. We're seeing more drought, and every one of these dynamics really lays the groundwork for how we get faster insights with these various dynamics in all of the different stakeholders that are impacted by them.

[00:17:34] Ebie Holst: So I'm gonna kick this off with a little bit of insight on some definitions that we're gonna be using here. We've kind of broken up this faster insights discussion into four main areas. One is these, the internet of things, IOT technologies that really translate to enabling automated monitoring.

[00:17:58] Ebie Holst: So with much of the industry, certainly historically, being reliant on getting samples of water and taking it back to the lab and testing it, the internet of things, IOT devices, can really mitigate some of that labor. so putting something in place that can automatically monitor conditions can be a very powerful tool.

[00:18:23] Ebie Holst: We have the components. So what are the things that actually enable those devices to work? It's not a simple thing, it's complicated. There are a number of other tools that go along with that, like I described the telemetry that we needed to put in place to enable that. The components are a really important part of enabling faster insights.

[00:18:47] Ebie Holst: And then we have rapid detection. So, for the purposes of this discussion, we're talking about detection, tools that enable detection to have a human participant in whatever is needed to be monitored. So that can be something that's used out in the field or something that accelerates the detection of something in the lab.

[00:19:15] Ebie Holst: that is a newer way to get insights. Without the more traditional, um you know, labor that may have been involved in traditional analytical work in the lab. And then we have AI and ML/AI and machine learning. And with this, what we're really talking about is, use of computer technology in order to recognize patterns or differentiate conditions where AI mimics human intelligence.

[00:19:55] Ebie Holst: Machine learning may be more self-contained in the design, but really making use of the power of computers to give us faster insights. So I wanna introduce our first panel, to really give us a lay of the land on these types of technologies. First, I'm gonna introduce. Keith Hays as vice president and managing director for Bluefield Research, which is the leading market research in the world, in the water industry.

[00:20:31] Ebie Holst: And his background is going to give him some unique perspective here. He's got telecom, energy and water sectors, as part of his background. And we're very happy to have you, Keith, wanna give a little hello?

[00:20:47] Keith Hays: Thank you. Hi everybody. Thanks for joining. Thanks Evie.

[00:20:51] Ebie Holst: Next it is Xavier van Slooten, Xavier is here with us from the Netherlands with PureTerra Ventures.

[00:21:01] Ebie Holst: He's an investor and he has worked for a number of years in early stage climate tech investments. and he's got a really great perspective on what are some of the things that are investible in this space. PureTerra Ventures has a global network and deep expertise in the water industry. It's one of the few funds out there that has been solely water focused.

[00:21:28] Ebie Holst: And so we're really excited to have you, Xavier, you wanna say hi.

[00:21:33] Xavier van Slooten: Hi everybody. Really excited to be here as well. Thanks for that introduction, Evie.

[00:21:38] Ebie Holst: Great. And Catie Marshand, applications engineer with YSI, Xylem. anybody who's on this call that doesn't know Xylem has a lot to learn about the water industry.

[00:21:51] Ebie Holst: YSI actually specifically is an Ohio company that was acquired by Xylem a number of years ago, focused specifically on different sensors, and Catie herself collaborates very directly with research and development teams, product managers. And she also has a background, with environmental water quality and, environmental watershed management.

[00:22:22] Ebie Holst: And so Catie I've asked to join us to speak really from kind of like the Xylem umbrella point of view about how much activity they actually do in the faster insight space. Catie, you wanna say hi.

[00:22:39] Catie Marchand: Hi everyone. Thanks for having me.

[00:22:42] Ebie Holst: Great, thanks so much. So, I'm gonna leave them up here so that if the audience has any questions, you can add some of those questions into the Q&A.

[00:22:53] Ebie Holst: and let me just start in with some of my questions with you, Keith. Tell us a little bit about why do we need faster insights?

[00:23:10] Keith Hays: So obviously the World of Water is becoming a more and more complex place to manage assets, meaning we've got climate change issues, we've got aging infrastructure, we have increasing costs to run some of those assets, and we have greater uncertainty around specific weather events.

[00:23:33] Keith Hays: Ebie you just mentioned before some of those harmful algae blooms, which have hit the Lake Erie region. So in the sense that we need more sophisticated tools and solutions to navigate those challenges, that's where some of these technologies, the rapid detection type solutions fit in from our point of view.

[00:23:57] Keith Hays: And it's not just obviously the tech itself. As we know, it's technology, it's people, it's processes that make these things really work in the context of whatever operational environment we're talking about here. But as we face greater exposure to some of those risks as regulation evolves as well, requiring greater compliance, let's say for discharging at a wastewater treatment plant, or for guaranteeing the quality of drinking water, we need new tools that can help support that.

[00:24:35] Keith Hays: And so that means both early warning if there's an event, but it also means more frequent data feeds to get better awareness as to how quality the water source is and how that's being maintained. And so I think it's really exciting the work that CWA is doing as well, supporting solutions that are helping to address those challenges.

[00:24:59] Ebie Holst: I'm gonna just dive a little bit deeper there, Keith, on something that you mentioned about, if something should happen, specific events. Have you seen any specific events that come to mind that have really started to build awareness about the need for faster insight types of technologies

[00:25:21] Ebie Holst: For example, one off the top for me of course, is here in Ohio we had the harmful algal bloom in Toledo, which shut down the city water system for about four days. And that was almost a half a million in population that was without water from their utility for about four days. Are there additional ones that you've seen that come to mind and, talk a little bit about how you think that impacted people to look more closely at faster insight types of technologies?

[00:25:58] Keith Hays: Yeah, definitely. So I'm over here in Europe actually, and we had a catastrophic flooding at the end of October in the Valencia region of Spain. And what happened around that incident was there was a communications failure in terms of the handoff of the situation in terms of the water levels and the rivers, how the rainfall was evolving and moving through the entire basin system, and the exposure on the floodplain.

[00:26:32] Keith Hays: And in a question of hours what went from a normal grade storm to a once in 300 year event. And so for us, it's really raised the awareness specifically in Europe. I would say over the last two years, there's been two or three flooding events like this where early detection and early warning about the situation around floodwater has definitely come to the fore.

[00:27:02] Keith Hays: So whether you're talking about a biological event or you're talking about a storm event, that has definitely raised awareness because of the the loss in obviously human life. In the case of the disaster in Spain here, but also in property, around 80 to 90% of all insurance claims pretty much every year are due to water damage.

[00:27:27] Keith Hays: And so the thinking is that. You know, having better tools, specifically decision support systems around managing stormwater and a lot of that having to do with rapid detection of the way that both rain gauges are working and, and level sensors are working together has been an example that's come to the fore lately.

[00:27:52] Ebie Holst: That's great. That's really helpful for making it real. I know oftentimes, and we'll talk more about this as we go, but I know oftentimes when you talk about rapid detection or you talk about the use of, these technologies and it's fundamentally about the data, it can feel really abstract to people until they actually kind of experience the use of that.

[00:28:17] Ebie Holst: And, I'd be interested, Catie, in some of what you see around that, about how people are. adopting some of these technologies and, and why these technologies matter. Could you speak about that?

[00:28:33] Catie Marchand: Yeah, absolutely. So one big one that we all have experienced, unfortunately is COVID. And that, obviously, is a more of a public health issue, but the thing about water resources is it water balances between the public health space and public health issues and the environment.

[00:28:52] Catie Marchand: So there's interplay there, obviously, but I think because COVID was such a unifying experience and everyone dealt with it and that there was a lot of focus on what can we do to affect change in this area - one of the big things that happened was the pathogenic exposure the pathway detection, so using wastewater to track COVID, for epidemiology studies and understanding the

[00:29:25] Catie Marchand: Tracking of COVID and how it's spreading. So we showed the public with that event how powerful water technology is for doing more than just monitoring and, things that people kind of look past because the water cycle to a lot of the public is a hidden thing but COVID brought it to the surface because we were able to demonstrate how powerful water technology is in tracking real time remote insights into something that greatly affects public health.

[00:29:57] Catie Marchand: And so I think that helped to put a spotlight on water technology and has helped unearth, to the public the importance of, of insights that are not only fast, but, almost omniscient and able to see things that we're not seeing on the surface, pun intended. but we are able to get responses that are much faster.

[00:30:28] Catie Marchand: if, if your insights are fully integrated into a system that isn't just at a certain point in the cycle or a certain point in the process, but spread out and, and kind of all-encompassing of the water cycle. And the real benefit comes from technology that is able to deliver that real time data in a holistic sense and also provide direct alerts to people that way it's not just collecting data, but it's notifying you.

[00:31:06] Catie Marchand: And then that brings people to be able to have important water decisions made on the spot. And be able to, to respond more quickly to issues that affect people at large. And yeah, I think water is connected. You know, it's, it's taken for granted, but you can manage water in a box and try to only take account for your inputs and outputs and the process you control.

[00:31:37] Catie Marchand: But in reality, it's a tragedy of the commons. You know, we're all responsible for this resource and we can affect it on all sides. So having technology that kind of bridges those gaps and, and pools resources, I think is really key. And I'm sure we're gonna get into it more.

[00:31:58] Ebie Holst: Tell me a little bit about, where do you see the who, who inside of what types of organizations?

[00:32:06] Ebie Holst: Are having the light bulb go off? I mean, is it prop administrators, is it the people more on the front lines? Where do you tend to see the folks that are driving use and adoption of some of these technologies?

[00:32:22] Catie Marchand: I mean, we know in the water world, all of us on the call, we know that these things are important.

[00:32:27] Catie Marchand: You don't have to tell us. I think the light bulb's going off for people who aren't in this world and who don't really think twice about how their water gets to them. These are people that are you know, they swim in their lakes and now they're starting to think about the water quality of the water they're swimming in or they're turning on a tap, and now they're thinking, where's my water coming from and what's the, the quality of it and how is it getting to me?

[00:32:51] Catie Marchand: And things like that. I think those are the people that's really getting affected at a new level. but as far as like beyond that, I mean. All of us on both sides of investing in technology and creating water technology. Luckily that public focus is helping to bring these things into more of a spotlight and allowing us to make more innovations because it's freeing up resources, maybe not freeing up resources, especially in this day and age.

[00:33:31] Catie Marchand: But I think because of this focus, it's bringing more people to the table to have discussions about what needs to happen, and, and putting more pressure on the water situation.

[00:33:47] Ebie Holst: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:33:51] Ebie Holst: some of those questions around who is responsible, for example, as deep as I see things going wrong.

[00:34:01] Ebie Holst: Who's in the hot seat for some of that and who is, who are, are the folks that are getting the light bulb, about use and adoption of these technologies is a big question for an investor's point of view. Xavier, can you talk a little bit about, about some of the, some of the value propositions that you're hearing from the market for these technologies and why some of these technologies have become investible and more nuance around that?

[00:34:40] Xavier van Slooten: Oh, sorry, I was muted still. Absolutely. I think we, so we, we see about 500 companies a year, I would say, and about 20% of that is, is in this particular area where it leads to either faster insights or more actionable insights. So it's a really big part of what we look at on a daily basis.

[00:35:03] Xavier van Slooten: The use cases that you see are also quite broad. So I would say rapid detection of microbiologies, definitely one of the more consistent ones that we see. We've invested ourselves in a company out of France called Diamidex that is in that area of microbiology detection. I think the PFAS side cannot be left out here.

[00:35:35] Xavier van Slooten: We see a lot of detection technologies on that side, whether it's in situ sensors or, it's more on the sampling side the rapid tests that you can do onsite and then the sort of the measuring technologies that are trying to get multi-parameter, measuring into water processes, whether that's drinking water or processed water or wastewater.

[00:36:07] Xavier van Slooten: I think that is also something that we see more and more often, as well. And yeah, I think for us a really important question there is something becomes investible when there's a, when there's clear drivers for customers, right? And I think there's, there's several drivers here. A few have been alluded to already.

[00:36:28] Xavier van Slooten: I think regulation is one of them, but I think the most important one here, is if they're actually actionable, these insights, then that would usually also lead to a relief in resources used, freeing up of resources. and I think when there's a concrete value proposition and concrete business case, then that's when this comes, becomes investible for us.

[00:36:57] Xavier van Slooten: and we do see that now more and more. Although, I mean these are all still very early stage companies that we talk to.

[00:37:08] Ebie Holst: That's really great. I mean, I would be interested in what it is about the technologies that you see, Xavier, that also make it a company really stand out? So one of those things is that kind of clear sense of the value proposition for the market side. but also what are some of the things that you see that are kind of really, really catch your attention as that's really interesting or things that are kind of like, yeah, that's, I don't think that's gonna scale or that's not gonna work.

[00:37:49] Ebie Holst: In just a general sense.

[00:37:51] Xavier van Slooten: Yeah, I mean it's it's, it's, honestly, it's difficult to say. I think one of the things that definitely catches our attention, us being we're an investor, but we're in, we're a venture capital investor, meaning that we do need to see sort of the potential for something to scale rapidly, right?

[00:38:07] Xavier van Slooten: And one of the things that play into that is, okay, what does the market currently look like? What is the, what's the status quo? And is it ready to be disrupted? And I think that is what we really look for there. And if I zoom in a little bit, okay. What is now a market that could be ready for disruption?

[00:38:27] Xavier van Slooten: I think on the microbiology side, like I said, we invested in a company called Diamidex. They're more on the lab side where they would replace the standard method, which would take anywhere from five to 12 days. And they bring that back to two days, which is a very good value proposition, but I think the more interesting one, or not more, but an interesting one, we're looking now more and more into is okay, but throughout the network, throughout your infrastructure, how are you gonna manage and get insights into biology and biological activity into water.

[00:39:00] Xavier van Slooten: so I think rapid, rapid in sit-in sensors, in water networks you know, whether that is drinking water or wastewater, I think that is something that really is catching our attention right now because we, we feel that there's no real alternative that is actually real time at this point.

[00:39:25] Xavier van Slooten: So it seems like that market is quite open and ready to be disrupted. and we also see the value of having insights there where you would be able to scale down labor, or other costs, I think, which would make it really interesting for a customer to start working with one of these technologies.

[00:39:47] Xavier van Slooten: another one, very clear one would be the, I mean, maybe not very clear, but I think the, the onsite measuring of PFAS I know it's, it's it's a little bit of a buzzword. We're all pretty done with hearing that too often, but it's also hard to get around. So I think there's also a very clear value proposition where normally you would send it to a lab, it would take several days, it would cost you a lot of money.

[00:40:21] Xavier van Slooten: and that is now potentially being disrupted by tests that are not nearly as expensive per sample and give you results in a few minutes or an hour maybe. It's, it's questionable if it's gonna get down to the detection limit. And I think that is where the, the big sort of, you know what, what you're gonna have to weigh in there is, okay, what you have is either a very specific test that is very accurate and gives you all the results that you need.

[00:40:51] Xavier van Slooten: Or it's more of a it has a higher temporal resolution really, as we say. It's real time or maybe once in an hour, but gives you just the bare minimum maybe for you to, to take action on. but that is something that I think in both instances is catching our attention right now.

[00:41:13] Ebie Holst: That's really helpful to get a sense of where you see some of the opportunities next. Xavier, I know, with some of the work that Cleveland Water Alliance does, we provide data to a range of players and certainly the utilities that we provide data to have shared with us. That having those insights in real time when possible can make a really big difference in terms of them planning their who's on shifts.

[00:41:42] Ebie Holst: There's fewer need to call people off-hours to rush in that there's a change in the source water or potentially around chemistry that's being used to treat water. I'd be curious from any one of you, where do you think there are some additional big gaps or opportunities and what do you think are the biggest barriers to adoption?

[00:42:10] Ebie Holst: I kind of mentioned that this being sort of abstract when you first start talking about data is sort of the point of these faster insights making, making. What's going on? more quickly available and also actionable, as you pointed out. Xavier, I'd be really interested in hearing what you think are some of the other barriers and where there are some other opportunities.

[00:42:39] Ebie Holst: Yeah, anyone

[00:42:40] Catie Marchand: right off the bat, there's a huge gap between the technologies that we have available and making that data easily digestible and available to the public. And that's, that's gonna make the connection between why technology is important and the actionability of the data. But the unique position that Xylem comes from is that we're a water technology company, right?

[00:43:08] Catie Marchand: Xylem is a parent company of many brands across the water cycle. So what Xylem does is, kind of creates a holistic approach to water management solutions by incorporating all of these different brands. YSI included, which is the environmental water quality technology that I work with.

[00:43:30] Catie Marchand: but the point being is that in order to make a holistic solution that can make it to the public, that can make water insights actionable, is that you can't do it alone. No one company is gonna fill the gap that breaks this wide open. It's going to be many different companies working side by side that can provide a full service package.

[00:43:57] Catie Marchand: So a barrier is the barriers between each of our parts of the process. You know, there's a lack of data sharing between entities and between companies. So one company will try a new piece of technology and maybe it works for them, maybe it doesn't, but they don't share that information with the public, with other companies doing trials.

[00:44:24] Catie Marchand: So it's possible that the company that delivered the pilot for a trial of technology went broke and now they can't afford to continue to foster that development. So you kind of lose that momentum if it takes too long to implement something that's groundbreaking. and people aren't willing to take the same levels of risk.

[00:44:50] Catie Marchand: So you have a company that has delivered a solution. But if it's not something that people can easily sign off on, then it's hard for somebody to want to sign their name to that. Say, okay, this is the solution we're gonna go with. If it fails, then you know, that's possibly gonna fall back on whoever signed off on it.

[00:45:16] Catie Marchand: So I think that breaking down the barriers between data sharing is absolutely something that we have to do. We cannot be siloed. We have to have holistic solutions, and work together and share data, and we can't have fear of failure. So that's where companies that can back innovative technologies come in, that can help take away the fear of failure, take away the risk both financially and legally and help support innovation because now you have an entity that's willing to vouch for you and your, and your technology, but also help expedite the process and use connections to break down those barriers between,

[00:46:07] Catie Marchand: Between companies and between entities, between groups who really should be sharing their data. So yeah, it's, I think, the barriers really need to be de-risked because that's the only way we're gonna move forward especially in the water world where the water's connected, we need to be connected to, and we need to shepherd relationships between each other.

[00:46:26] Catie Marchand: and that's really a focus of the Xylem Innovation Lab where we are not only a water technology company, but we fund water technology developers because it's important to be hosting on all sites.

[00:46:44] Ebie Holst: Yeah, I think, Catie, everything you said could be said about innovation in general, right?

[00:46:49] Ebie Holst: I mean, absolutely. It's tough, it's risky. And, and so what are some ways that we can help to de-risk some of that journey? And Keith, I wanted to, just check in with you too about where you see some of the, some of the barriers in adoption or for the end user side. And then also any, any specific areas where you think there's, there's a gap in market need in, in faster and, more decision supported insights.

[00:47:22] Keith Hays: Yeah, so I think it really, a lot of the inertia is around the regulation, the compliance requirements. So you know, a lot of public entities that are managing water resources, they don't have tons of. Money to put into experimenting with new technologies. They really do what needs to be compliant. Really, that's their mission, right?

[00:47:47] Keith Hays: So when you think about what Xavier was saying about finding technologies, you can usually scale up. They're ones that we must have to be compliant, right? And so if we know that some of these contaminants that are showing up in our water are bad and we know that there's great technology out there that can detect it easily, and we know that there's removal technology for it as well, then what's the gap?

[00:48:10] Keith Hays: Right? Why aren't these markets growing at 20, 30% a year until it's saturated? Because we know it's bad for our health. Clearly there is a challenge there and a lot of it, I think, still has to do with some of the inertia around the way that particularly water quality testing from what we've seen advances over time.

[00:48:31] Keith Hays: Obviously you have to be very cautious. This is a public health question. Technologies need to be ultra proven. But from what we've seen, we've done several consulting projects now looking at different water quality testing technologies and particularly real time testing for micropollutants or PFAS or micro, biological contaminants.

[00:48:56] Keith Hays: and it's all there and it all works. But the regulation still does not admit real-time sampling from a lot of these sensors, right? You still have to do the grab sampling, you still have to feed it into the limbs, and then the laboratory information management system then sends it over. And so it is this, it, it's not a streamlined process, it's purposely like that, but there will be over time, I think particularly right now what we're seeing is that.

[00:49:24] Keith Hays: You've got these new technologies that are moving in parallel with the old way of doing things, right? So you still have somebody doing the grab sampling putting it into the, the analyzer, whoever's analyzers you're buying and putting that data off to the lab. But this could all be going way faster, which we know.

[00:49:42] Keith Hays: And so there are utilities that are experimenting with it, they're using it more for operational decisions than they are for compliance. But over time, that does have to be a compliance thing, and that is gonna have to come with, I think, more awareness on the part of the policy makers.

[00:50:01] Ebie Holst: That's great.

[00:50:02] Ebie Holst: Thank you Keith. I'm, I just so appreciate the perspectives of all three of you, and I'm going to use some of your framing here to now tee up some discussion with our innovators. So, please join in with questions for them as well. Keith, Xavier, Catie, here we go. So Innovator Insights. I am introducing four new people to the discussion of Ed Rudberg of Nucleic Sensing Systems, or NS2 is a seasoned expert, has run multiple companies, from ideation all the way through commercialization and profitability, and has a PhD in Natural Resources Science and Management.

[00:50:53] Ebie Holst: So he's bringing a lot of expertise here. Nucleic Sensing System is a technology that actually enables real time sampling of, using EDNA and ERNA to detect biologics in the water. And we're very happy to have you here. Ed, say hello.

[00:51:19] Ed Rudberg: Hi everyone. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate everyone tuning in.

[00:51:23] Ebie Holst: Great. And next we have Jay Almlie. Jay is Chief Marketing Officer for Satelytics. Satelytics is a geospatial analytics company that is a leader specifically in the energy sector and is doing more work in the water industry. We're very excited actually, about the possibilities, what they can do for the water industry.

[00:51:48] Ebie Holst: They specifically focus on one amongst other things, the use of satellite imagery, and the use of algorithms. He's gonna be representing the AI portion of our discussion, and was on the IOT portion of our discussion and Jay has some background in pipeline leak detection. Jay, we're so glad to have you.

[00:52:14] Ebie Holst: Please say hello.

[00:52:16] Jay Almlie: Thank you Ebie, Good morning or good afternoon or good day everyone. Happy to be here. Looking forward to some good discussion and good questions.

[00:52:27] Ebie Holst: Alright, thanks Jay. Next we have Paul Martin Schwartz. He's a co-founder and CEO of SenArch. SenArch is an off grid solar powered LoRaWAN Gateway.

[00:52:43] Ebie Holst: I mentioned LoRaWAN earlier in our discussion here. We are really excited to learn more about his technology and Paul himself is a seasoned entrepreneur. And he works specifically in design, implementation and operation of IOT and data networking infrastructure. So that's right up the alley of this discussion.

[00:53:06] Ebie Holst: And he's representing the components of the IOT portion of our innovator. Say hello, Paul. We're glad to have you.

[00:53:20] Ebie Holst: to be lose him again.

[00:53:23] Paul Martin Schwartz: Thank you, I was on my mute. happy to be here. Really thrilled and honored to be on the panel. looking forward to having a good conversation with y'all. Thanks.

[00:53:39] Ebie Holst: Great, thanks Paul. And last but certainly not least is Alex Certoma. Alex is our Australian, joining us from Australia.

[00:53:52] Ebie Holst: he's the Associated Director corporate for Universal Biosensors. And, this company is specifically producing disposable, multi-layered test strips, for electrochemical sensing. And currently they are showing some real promise around lead and copper. And they're also working on some additional parameters.

[00:54:17] Ebie Holst: And Alex has been with Universal Biosensors since August 2020, and he works very closely with the, the sort of later stages of commercialization, specifically around market identification and, initial partnering and distributor relationships. So that'll be a great perspective that you're gonna bring to the conversation.

[00:54:40] Ebie Holst: Alex, Please say hi.

[00:54:42] Alex Certoma: Yeah, thank you Ebie. Great to be here and looking forward to the discussion.

[00:54:49] Ebie Holst: Great. Well I, I'm really excited to talk to all four of you because, one of the things that I really want us to share with our audience today is what it's like to be trying to commercialize.

[00:55:05] Ebie Holst: Technologies in your respective spaces and some of the, the key things that you've found inspiring that keeps you going, and some of the challenges that you also face. So I'm gonna start with, I'm gonna start with you, Ed, and, and ask you if you could talk a little bit about what are some of the key challenges of developing tech in the IOT space.

[00:55:29] Ebie Holst: Specifically what have you come across in terms of market interest adoption or, or the technology side of things itself?

[00:55:40] Ed Rudberg: Sure, thanks so much. And that's a really good question. So my background, I'm inherently interdisciplinary. However, our society isn't always inherently interdisciplinary.

[00:55:50] Ed Rudberg: And so I can only speak to our challenges. And what we are doing is bringing what is essentially laboratory technology, droplet digital PCR technology into the field and looking at water quality, whether it be invasive species or source tracking of the biologicals whatever you may be interested in.

[00:56:09] Ed Rudberg: So we find ourselves not really always sitting in what is a traditional vertical you know, are we a bio tools company or are we a water company, or are we a, you name it company. And so some of that leads and, and I'm sure any of the other founders on this call can say we really are, educating the market on, on what could be.

[00:56:34] Ed Rudberg: When it comes to bio tools or you know, any of these other verticals, especially when you're your borderline if you're called deep tech or, or something else. So much of it is telling the market and not only the market, what could be, but also investors and, and convincing everyone that this is a good next step for our field.

[00:57:00] Ebie Holst: Great. Thank you so much, Ed. I appreciate that, that kind of sharing that perspective of being multidisciplinary when you're trying to bring something to market, but recognizing that the people that you're talking to may not have that kind of texture to go back and forth between all the considerations.

[00:57:21] Ebie Holst: I think that's really interesting. I wanna ask you, Jay, about, from the AI perspective, I remember one of the conversations that we had was around the ground truth thing, being able to, develop some of your algorithms, which are dependent on a lot of data to teach your algorithm.

[00:57:45] Ebie Holst: Can you talk a little bit about that and some of the things that are a challenge around that and how you, how you address them?

[00:57:51] Jay Almlie: Sure. Thanks Ebie. Actually, some of my answer might echo what Ed just said. A big portion of it is not so much the algorithms, although I will address that too, Ebie, 'cause it was a specific part of your question, but really customer education and really sparking imagination.

[00:58:11] Jay Almlie: Ed said bringing the lab into the field. Well, what does that mean? In our case, it is applying AI based algorithms, which I've already lost some people, I've already lost some of our customers because I've used those words. But also then doing it quickly and doing it over a wide territory from satellite data.

[00:58:31] Jay Almlie: Now, I've really lost some people. So a lot of it is education, but you are also correct Ebie, in that we can't, we are what I like to call multilateral geospatial analytics company. That's a lot of words. I've gotta work on that as a marketing officer. But, condensing that down. What that means is we're solving a lot of different problems across a lot of different silos within companies who are our customers.

[00:58:58] Jay Almlie: That in itself is a big imagination gap. But then taking our really good propellerheads. We can solve problems. We can give actionable results, but how do we actually operationalize that? For our customer that includes some ground truthing upfront, and how do we get that customer, that early adopter who's willing to walk that journey with us, at the very front. That's also a challenge.

[00:59:33] Ebie Holst: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I imagine that's certainly a challenge for you too, Paul, with SenArch. I mean, when you're talking about LoRaWAN, for example, again, just saying those words, you, you probably lose half of your audience. How do you educate some of your market about what it it's that SenArch does?

[00:59:56] Paul Martin Schwartz: Indeed, indeed. And we try to avoid using those very techy technology brands or names because, or abbreviations, because at the end of the day it's about as Jay and Ed was saying lowering the barriers and creating these end-to-end solutions where the networking component is a part of that.

[01:00:24] Paul Martin Schwartz: It's a part of the ecosystem and it's a part of the delivery chain. So, so if you're deploying sensors, in situ sensors, or you could say sensors on buoys on the lake, you need to have some kind of delivery mechanism for bringing those data bring those sensor data back to back back to the servers and back to the cloud and, and actually creating those insights and actionable you know relevance from those data pieces of data and those time series of data.

[01:01:11] Paul Martin Schwartz: So what we do is we are trying to solve inherently the problem that we don't have 115 or 220, 230 volts AC in the wall all over the place. So we're providing a networking mechanism that you can deploy in nature anywhere where there's sun. We can give you a tool set for creating that cloud of networking, that wireless network that you need to connect your sensors.

[01:01:48] Paul Martin Schwartz: And that is what also what we're helping the Cleveland water lines doing with, with, with the sensors in, on the buoys, bringing those data sets back to the, to the watershed where we place our gateways and then the data is then backhauled, to the cloud.

[01:02:09] Ebie Holst: Yeah. You know, I found, Sometimes bringing it to people's own experience can help take that abstract to something more tangible.

[01:02:18] Ebie Holst: So I'll often say we've all had our cell phone somewhere, where you can't get a signal and this is some of these technologies help to address making sure that you can get a signal. But doing that for, for an IOT device, for example. Alex, I'm really curious about some of what you've found in evolving your relationship with your end users and being able to, kind of get their buy-in and understanding of the value proposition that you bring.

[01:02:55] Ebie Holst: Can you talk a little bit about that?

[01:02:57] Alex Certoma: Yeah. Thank you. I guess we've found it quite difficult to actually engage and get that initial feedback, being a company that's not initially from the water industry and doesn't have a lot of experience. So, we've had our technology commercialized in other industries such as human health, in wine and in the veterinary space.

[01:03:21] Alex Certoma: But this product is our first foray into water. So really a lot of our work has been into identifying the correct end users for what we're doing, and then trying to get some initial feedback in the terms of small pilot studies where we can get users using the device, making sure they're happy with how it functions, but then also happy with how it performs so that we can improve, continue through the prototyping stage, and basically have a feedback loop as we go through development because you know what may have been suitable for another industry.

[01:03:59] Alex Certoma: May, may be completely off for the use in a water utility or in waste water treatment plant or in, you know, an industrial waste monitoring area. So actually getting the right connections and building that network to obtain that feedback has probably been our biggest challenge as we move into a new industry, but also into markets that are halfway across the world in the US from where we are here in Australia.

[01:04:32] Ebie Holst: So it's kind of getting the use cases, right? So what, where, where will the market pull be for a technology, like what you're offering and then getting more nuance around that, for how it needs to work for that end user. Which kind of goes back to some of the earlier comments as well.

[01:04:55] Alex Certoma: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[01:04:57] Alex Certoma: Because we can monitor heavy metals. So it is, has such a wide range of different applications and potential, but you know, being a company that has limited resources, it's about identifying those one or two opportunities that we can attack first before we then broaden out as we, as we get initial adoption and then hopefully market penetration and, and sort of snowball into that exponential growth that I think, some of the investors were talking about before.

[01:05:30] Ebie Holst: Yes. Investors are always, always looking for the hockey stick. Indeed. I wanna ask a little bit about that product side, because we did talk here across all four of you about, mostly about kind of the market side, that educating the market and finding the right use cases. Could you talk a little bit about the product side, like Ed, if you would,

[01:05:57] Ebie Holst: You know, EDNA and ERNA is not that simple, it's a delicate technology. Could you talk a little bit about how you've worked on the technical side to evolve your product offering?

[01:06:12] Ed Rudberg: Absolutely. I mean, just like anyone else's technologies, we start very much in the laboratory with an idea, right?

[01:06:20] Ed Rudberg: And, and you go, well, might this be possible? And able to say, okay, we're having some good results. And, and we build upon those successes and build upon those successes. And, and luckily for us, and this gets into I'm sure other things we'll talk about, but, but support from things like some of the small business integration, innovation research grants in the United States can help transition that technology from universities, and, and get it out there.

[01:06:45] Ed Rudberg: and then eventually, hopefully work with folks like the CWA to show that we can have a case study of any of the… We love case studies and, and new markets to show the market opportunity to show happy customers. And it really is a progression to get there as you go through prototypes and eventually have something that's pretty enough and, you know.

[01:07:10] Ed Rudberg: Works well enough to have in front of customers.

[01:07:13] Ebie Holst: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Now we, I know we've got, kind of a range of different tech stages as we refer to them, at least in the US like tech readiness level earlier stage and later stage. And Satelytics, you guys are already commercialized, you've already got a number of different customers, but I also imagine that as you come across some of these customers, they'll, they'll get a sense of what you do, and then they'll say, can you do this for something else entirely?

[01:07:47] Ebie Holst: can you talk a little bit about how you address those new market opportunities as they come up?

[01:07:54] Jay Almlie: Sure. Thanks Ebie. You're spot on. I like to call it a lily pad approach. We've taken a lily pad approach to how we offer our products to the market. We started in the water market. We started right here on Lake Erie for very similar reasons that you've talked about Ebie and others.

[01:08:13] Jay Almlie: It has water quality issues at times. In fact, we're here in Toledo, which you mentioned at the outset about us losing water set many years ago because of a HAB, a harmful algal bloom. So we started in that field. From there BP, British Petroleum caught notice of us and said, “oh, could you use that algorithm to solve these problems for us,

[01:08:40] Jay Almlie: On the, on the north slope of Alaska where we have some oil properties?” Why, we think we can, are you willing to partner with us? So we did that. We looked at 10,000 different water bodies on the north slope of Alaska, close to where BP had some activity. from there they said, well, could you also solve this problem and this problem?

[01:09:04] Jay Almlie: So our approach, answering your question, Ebie has been this lily pad. Solve one problem, let our customers recognize where else it could be applied, and then start solving those problems proofing out one at a time.

[01:09:21] Ebie Holst: I love that. I think that's like the key to any kind of evolution, right?

[01:09:27] Ebie Holst: I know it, it makes a big difference whether you're in the early stage of a company or you're more mature and you have the resources. I know Paul, you probably have some comments about that too and, and Alex as well about, when you're earlier stage. How do you make some of those choices about which, which thing to go after and, and which things to say, okay, maybe later.

[01:09:56] Paul Martin Schwartz: the whole roadmap and prioritization is a hard task. And it is, it's challenging because you tend to be very focused on getting as much into the product as possible and, and being able to solve all kinds of problems at once. But, because we're a small company, we have to be very diligent about where we spend our calories and, and where we spend our time.

[01:10:32] Paul Martin Schwartz: So, it becomes a very customer driven approach where. If we see a great demand from one or more customers to implement a certain feature or function, then that becomes prioritized, of course. which is also I'd like to say one of the reasons why we think working with the Cleveland Water Lines is so attractive is because we can, we can get our solution out there into a very, you could say, rough environment where it gets tested, in a situation where we can then take that back, those experiences both successes and failures and we can put that into our product development and make our product even more you know, customer centric and problem solving.

[01:11:32] Ebie Holst: Alex, you were, you were talking too about just you have limited resources. So, how do you get that, that customer feedback early on, to be able to gauge traction? Do you have, do you have some lessons learned you could share with us?

[01:11:49] Alex Certoma: Yeah, I think probably one of the most, the areas we've had the most success is around attending things like this: industry webinars, events, trade shows, where we can talk to a large people in the market, in a short space of time.

[01:12:08] Alex Certoma: You know, one of the benefits we have about being a rapid detection solution is that we can bring it to trade shows, we can bring it to events, we can demonstrate it in person on the spot, giving a result in a couple minutes. So having that amount of people together and being able to show our solution, really is the best way that we've found of being able to get people interested.

[01:12:33] Alex Certoma: Get people aware. And then start to move into some of these other more in depth evaluation techniques such as a pilot study or like a case study where we'll talk about the benefits of what we've done with the previous customer in a different industry. So getting in front of people that are in the industry that are motivated to look into innovative technologies such as an event like this is really key, for us particularly trying to break into a new market.

[01:13:07] Ebie Holst: Love it. Well, I wanna invite our earlier panelists to bring in some of their own questions and then here shortly we're gonna open it up to some of the questions from the audience. So Keith, Xavier, Catie, welcome back. Do you have some questions for some of our innovators?

[01:13:30] Keith Hays: I think I just, probably a very general question for you guys.

[01:13:33] Keith Hays: I mean one of the challenges with water is that it is so hyperlocal. So when it comes to trying to translate, let's say a, a use case that you have that works in one river basin or, or one area versus another, how do you find ways to make the takeaways more universal? because I know that that's something that a lot of companies that we've looked at struggle with is that everything kind of feels bespoke and very local versus applicable to a wider group of customers.

[01:14:12] Ebie Holst: Jay? Jay, you wanna try taking that one?

[01:14:16] Jay Almlie: Well, I can try. I'm wondering if I'm not the best one to answer this because we don't feel that our solution is localized. I understand the jist of question, but if we can see a spectral signature and that's how we do what we do. If we can see it in one river basin, we can see it anywhere.

[01:14:34] Jay Almlie: In fact, we're proving that around the world. So I think perhaps I'm not the best one to answer this question. Ebie,

[01:14:41] Ebie Holst: thanks. That's a really good point. Thank you, Jay. Any of you others? Ed?

[01:14:47] Paul Martin Schwartz: I may be able to put my or SenArch's perspective on it, and that is, to provide connectivity where. It matters. I mean, where it's meaningful and where it's needed.

[01:14:59] Paul Martin Schwartz: So, so what we can do, is we can provide in addition to supporting a rapid monitoring rapid sensing, we can provide rapid deployment, which means that, for instance, a little while ago we were, we were listening to the, the gentleman you know, mentioning the catastrophic event in Valencia.

[01:15:30] Paul Martin Schwartz: Well, if we, for instance, were able to have rapid deployment of these kind of delivery mechanisms, these networks and sensors in nature. We would be able to, to catch those events and, and probably even avoid them, from, from happening because we would have insights and actionable data.

[01:15:57] Paul Martin Schwartz: so in addition to creating really like large scale network deployments, which we are doing with telecommunications companies such as Net More group, we're also providing small bubbles of connectivity where you can set these gateways up for instance in the watershed and then create your connectivity where it's, where it's really needed.

[01:16:27] Ebie Holst: Thanks, Paul. I appreciate that. We're almost here for some audience questions, but I just wanna ask Catie and Xavier, if you have any, any last question before we jump in.

[01:16:41] Catie Marchand: Really quick. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Xavier.

[01:16:44] Xavier van Slooten: Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. So what I'm, what I'm interested in hearing right, is we've seen so many different technologies and I, I talked about the, the amount that we see on our own it's pretty incredible, but the amount of different use cases, focus areas is also pretty broad.

[01:16:59] Xavier van Slooten: And a large part of the innovators here as well are, focusing on the same customer. So how do you make sure in the end that customers are not looking at 10 different things and how do you make sure that you integrate well and also, is there, is there an opportunity to collaborate and integrate with each other already at these levels?

[01:17:24] Xavier van Slooten: Because that also, I can imagine makes the procurement potentially more interesting or easier because you know, these utilities, if you take utility, they don't have to choose between maybe we'll do microbiology, maybe we'll do you know, heavy metals. Maybe we'll do both at the same time. You know, that, that's, that's what I’m curious to hear.

[01:17:47] Ebie Holst: Love that question. Xavier here. Anybody wanna take a stab at that? Yep,

[01:17:53] Ed Rudberg: absolutely. Yeah, and I think you have a really good point. I always tell people we don't make the Tylenol that takes your kids' fever down, right? We have the thermometer that tells you that your kid’s got a fever. So we need to partner with other innovative companies, other sensors, other AI solutions so that we can bring to our customer solution suites so that it's not enough to solve one small problem.

[01:18:20] Ed Rudberg: We need to solve an overarching problem. And that is at least what we're trying to do with our connections, really to bring together that suite so we solve the problem. Not one small thing.

[01:18:31] Catie Marchand: That's exactly the kind of point that I was hoping to get at as well. And people are famously recalcitrant.

[01:18:37] Catie Marchand: Is there any insight you have on how you get people to adopt changes and make changes to their processes? That's really what comes down to

[01:18:47] Jay Almlie: I think that's a great question, Catie. We face that challenge with many of our customers. You have to find those early adopters who are known as thought leaders.

[01:18:58] Jay Almlie: in the utility industry. It might be a Duke Energy who's pretty well known for their forward thinking. How do we adopt technology to do what we do better? So when you find them and they're willing to invest in the process with you and then change their own standard processes, their tried and true processes to harness that new technology.

[01:19:23] Jay Almlie: Boy that makes a loud statement. It makes a louder statement when a Duke can speak for us, rather than our marketing department speaking for us. So that's the magic is if you can find those customers who are thought leaders and want to demonstrate the future, that's a tremendous way forward.

[01:19:42] Catie Marchand: Couldn't agree more.

[01:19:45] Ebie Holst: Hey, at this point I'm gonna, turn this, some of this discussion over to my colleague Natalie, who is navigating some of the audience questions for us, and, stay tuned all of you for some of some of what we're hearing from the audience. Natalie.

[01:20:05] Natalie Von Scyoc: Hi everyone. So actually the first question is for you Ebie, if you could just talk a little bit more about our innovation challenges and maybe just what goes into planning and establishing that.

[01:20:18] Ebie Holst: Yeah. So I'll keep this brief, and there's always room for more discussion offline, but basically innovation challenges are where we work with industry partners. It could be utilities, it could be a private company, it could be industrial where they share with us what specific challenge they're trying to solve.

[01:20:44] Ebie Holst: so an example of this would be detecting lead service lines without breaking ground. This is a challenge that we undertook with six different drinking water utilities where there's the need to identify lead service lines without having to dig down to know what they are, which is the current baseline of, of how you do that.

[01:21:08] Ebie Holst: And we'll work with these utilities to basically say, okay, well. How do you do it now? What would a solution look like? What are some of the things that need to be considered in the fields, like power or, or you know, who's the person who's actually going to be walking from place to place to, to do this identification and fleshing out those, those specifications.

[01:21:34] Ebie Holst: And then we put together this essentially a request for technologies that we promote all over the world through various partners to bring out innovators who may have a technology already, or they may just have an idea. And we leverage industry experts to help kind of serve on the judges panel.

[01:21:59] Ebie Holst: We may engage some of the associations in the industry as well. That's certainly something that we did with the lead service line thing. And then we really kind of helped to support moving those technologies along, whether it's taking it from a concept to a prototype or engaging other partners, for trialing.

[01:22:23] Ebie Holst: oftentimes we'll have some test facilities for some of those technologies as well. So that's something we do on a kind of a case by case basis. But if that's something you're interested in, please contact us.

[01:22:37] Natalie Von Scyoc: Thanks Ebie. Our next question is, are you finding new interest industries showing interest or deploying dollars into new technologies or water data analytics?

[01:22:50] Natalie Von Scyoc: This could be like in the insurance industry.

[01:22:55] Xavier van Slooten: Yeah, that's funny actually. That was the first thing that popped into my mind when I heard this question. Indeed the insurance side to this is interesting. It brings in new customers, other customers than your typical utilities potentially also.

[01:23:12] Xavier van Slooten: And there's, there's also a different willingness to pay there and also a willingness to innovate. So I think indeed the insurance side is interesting for some of these more for these rapid detection technologies. I think in, broadly in the industry, I wouldn't necessarily be able to pick one out here.

[01:23:40] Xavier van Slooten: I think I, I think we do see a lot of technologies that are trying to focus on outside of the utility. And I think as an investor we do like to see that as well, generally. I'm, I'm leaning towards the food and bev side, but it's. It's so much dependent on trust and it's, it's, I I'm not sure if, if the mo needle is really moving already or that it's still sort of yet to happen.

[01:24:07] Xavier van Slooten:

[01:24:09] Ebie Holst: and regulations as well, I imagine is part of those drivers, right? So if, if, private industry has some regulation around certain parameters in the water, then that may drive that private industry to also adopt things a little more quickly.

[01:24:30] Jay Almlie: I think you're on the right track. Ebie, and, and also Xavier, you said it, we tend to think of just the water industry and what does that mean and who are the adopters there. But every other industry has water as a central feature to it as well. Utilities for generation utilities for transmission of electricity across water bodies where they're monitoring those water bodies.

[01:24:55] Jay Almlie: Certainly oil and gas has serious water concerns. So when those other industries invest in new technologies, they're not only helping those industries, but they're also spilling over into adjacent industries such as water clusters and, and people like that. So I think we need to look at it as a holistic market, especially on this topic of water because it's so ubiquitous. Everyone has water impacts.

[01:25:26] Ebie Holst: Love that.

[01:25:28] Natalie Von Scyoc: Thank you guys. this one is more for the panelists, but are we working on water solutions for traditional field and controlled environment agriculture? If anyone could speak to the activities there.

[01:25:51] Xavier van Slooten: I can speak to what we've seen on the ag side. Definitely. We see a lot of rapid detection. I mean, whether it's soil moisture, probes. I think there's a ton of companies out there that we've looked at. I don't know if that's right now for us, really the most interesting I think, we've ourselves invested in a software company out of Australia that gives irrigation advice based on a range of inputs.

[01:26:20] Xavier van Slooten: And I think that also leans on our thesis that indeed you can have one data input, but it's more so about how do you make that actionable and how do you integrate that into your entire operation and integrate everything really that when it comes to data, the controlled environment.

[01:26:39] Xavier van Slooten: I haven't seen so much to be honest, there's a lot out there, but there's also a lot already implemented. So the, the, the amount of disruption possible, I would say there is, is a little bit, or we perceive that at least, maybe is a little bit lower right now. So maybe a little bit less of interest from an investment point of view.

[01:27:04] Catie Marchand: And I'll also just say that digital solutions aren't going away. You know, they're the road forward for water analysis and water reporting on all sides of the field. So, I think that's like the main thing that we're working toward as a whole solutions point of view.

[01:27:27] Catie Marchand: integrated systems that address issues from all sides of the water industry, Going back to Xylem does a lot of work in traditional field studies as well as agriculture and things like that. But, the unifying feature is you know, faster data insights are a big thing today and getting actionable outcomes.

[01:27:55] Catie Marchand: and I think water technology as a whole doesn't really have a choice. We're moving toward that direction.

[01:28:02] Ebie Holst: Yeah. I, I'll just add too that I think, the agriculture question specifically touches on something Keith said earlier, which is around specific regions, right? I mean, like drought stricken areas.

[01:28:18] Ebie Holst: May have really, really high interest and high investor interest as well in technologies that can not only provide faster insights on, on moisture in the soil, but also on the nutrients in the soil. So, I do think there's, that kind of goes back to that region specific, some of that region specific demand

[01:28:42] Paul Martin Schwartz: Yeah. I also like to add that Denmark, where I'm sitting, is a very large agricultural component in Denmark's large industry. What we're seeing is that, washing out of nutrients from fields is something that is also creating big problems in our watershed to the sea.

[01:29:12] Paul Martin Schwartz: We, the country has over 5,400 miles of, you could say border to the ocean. So shoreline. And, our inner waters are very heart-stricken by, by lack of oxygen, which is, which is caused by these nitrogens being washed out. So, that's one thing. The other thing is that, with the rising sea levels and, and the more intense weather systems, we're also very conscious of flash floods.

[01:29:51] Paul Martin Schwartz: So, so water is something that is is taken very seriously here in this country at least, where we, where we have centers, um both in fields monitoring the, you could say the nutrients and the agricultural components, but also the rising sea levels and, and flash floods to, to warn against against the catastrophes.

[01:30:20] Paul Martin Schwartz: So, yeah, so absolutely. Also seeing it from a holistic point of view here.

[01:30:30] Ebie Holst: Okay. We've got one more question. I know there's a lot of questions we didn't get to, but one last question and then we're wrapping up. I know we're a little bit over time.

[01:30:40] Natalie Von Scyoc: I think this is actually a great one to wrap up on.

[01:30:43] Natalie Von Scyoc: as we all know, the water utility industry is famously conservative and slow to adopt new tech because of the regulatory landscape. So how could utility groups help adopt new technologies and kind of just make that a better transition?

[01:31:07] Ed Rudberg: Let's make innovation not a dirty word. You know, it's gonna be the chicken and the egg. When it comes to regulation and innovation. Innovation's always going to precede future regulations. And so finding those early innovators, getting those case studies as, as you have that time lag, finding other verticals that you can continue to show your value add, I think is critically important.

[01:31:34] Catie Marchand: The technology has to provide a benefit that outweighs the cost of adoption. You know, it's gotta be innovative to the point where it improves efficiency, it makes people's lives easier, it improves their cost of monitoring in the long term.

[01:31:55] Xavier van Slooten: And I, I think an additional benefit that you know, is potentially maybe going under the radar here is, is also you're dealing with an, an aging workforce in utilities. And they might not be as open to new innovation, but what you also see is if you would adopt more innovation, that also makes the whole notion of working for utility more interesting for a younger workforce as well.

[01:32:20] Xavier van Slooten: So I, I also see that that could be a potential sort of side benefit that is now, I don't know if, if utilities realize that enough, that could also be of, of a lot of interest.

[01:32:31] Ebie Holst: I love that. Thank you. That's a great additional point, Xavier. So with that, I just wanna thank all of you, our panelists and remind everyone that there's more to come.

[01:32:43] Ebie Holst: The Spotlight series is yet ahead, where we're gonna do some deeper dives on technologies and, specifically also on our faster insights technologies and a special session featuring Badger Meter and some things that you probably don't know that Badger Meter does. So this is an exciting time in the water industry.

[01:33:08] Ebie Holst: Please register for our next session: Components of IOT in Water Technology and we'll see you in April. Thanks so much for attending.

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