By Matthew Ries — Last week I attended a presentation by Colin Chapman, Innovation Research & Development Manager at Queensland Urban Utilities in Australia. The lunch, attended by my WEF & WE&RF colleagues and staff of the local utility, Alexandria Renew Enterprise, provided insight into one of the most innovative water utility programs in the world.
Colin described QUU’s transformation to a regional utility, and the formal innovation program that includes a dedicated Innovation Centre, pilot facilities, cutting-edge research, a recurring innovation hour with the CEO, and an employee innovation rewards program.
Luckily, you don’t have to be a large, regional utility or travel to Australia to learn about the benefits of implementing innovative approaches at your water utility. Next month’s WEF members’ only Water Innovation 2017 in San Francisco presents a program that will dig into innovation at water utilities, taking a practical approach to how you can implement innovative practices at your utility.
The program showcases utilities and leaders who are leading the wave toward Utilities of the Future. We’ll dig into operations & maintenance, financing, regulations, partnering with academics, and lessons learned from starting up an innovation program. The conference wraps up with a view of the future with our next generation of leaders who are already transforming our sector.
We are also pleased to be holding our event in collaboration with Imagine H20, one of WEF’s Innovation Partners. Imagine H20 is hosting their annual Water Gala in San Francisco and Water Innovation 2017 attendees are invited to the Gala the evening of March 15. The Gala will showcase award-winning water data companies who will also participate in the WEF program.
We hope you will join us for this exciting event in San Francisco next month. We expect the ideas and concepts discussed at this event to ripple through the sector for years to come, helping water utilities transform toward the Utility of the Future model.
Matthew Ries, Ph.D., P.E., is a former chief technical officer for WEF. In this capacity, he oversees the development of technical programming and content for WEF’s webcasts, seminars, specialty conferences, and WEFTEC, the world’s largest annual water conference. In addition, he manages staff serving as liaisons to over 20 technical committees, and initiatives on innovation, stormwater, nutrients, energy, and operators, among others. He serves as the staff liaison to WEF’s Utility Management Committee.