120Water is an end-to-end solution for drinking water programs, COVID-19 wastewater sampling, and compliance.

This episode is part of my series on Water Digitization – check it out!

What we covered:

How the Idea for 120Water came from scratching own itches

How the company swiftly pivoted from B2C to B2B or B2B2C (I hear you like acronyms? )

How digitizing the way you test the water and manage the results actually enables a whole new world of operation and maintenance

How bringing this information in plain sight helps to educate the public on the water topics and challenges

How innovation can be inhibited by regulation

How you shall consider non-technical parameters such as demographics when prioritizing maintenance works (and how 120Water helps with that)

How having been involved in 13’000 programs across 26 States turns 120Water into a bespoke lead expert (and how that leads – no pun intended – to adjacencies)

How a fresh eye on the water sector can be shocked by what water professionals got accustomed to (e.g., black boxes)

How customer communications might still be a blind spot for the Water Industry

How Energy may be a role-model market for the Water Sector when it comes to marketing

How you can’t manufacture growth (but may actually “hypergrow” your path to impact)

Michael Moore, PFAS, IPO… and so much more!

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Megan on LinkedIn

Have a look at 120Water’s website

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Infographic: 120Water

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi, Megan, Welcome to the show!

Megan Glover:

Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Antoine Walter:

Well, actually, you know, I always like to start these episodes with a postcard and you’re in a city where I should brag about, you know, you’re in Indianapolis right now and for the one that would ignore it and I’m sure nobody ignores that, but there was a French guy, Simon Pagenaud who won the famous 500 miles two years ago. So how is it to live in a city which is dominated by French culture now?

Megan Glover:

I actually was at that race too. That was actually my first Indy 500 and my first race there. Yeah, it’s humbling, right? Yeah. It’s very humbling. It was a sign, right? He was meant to win. No, it may, may is an exciting time and he is welcomed back to win the oval track any time.

Towards 120Water

Antoine Walter:

So, yeah, actually, you know, I had many guests on that podcast, many of them being water professionals with a full track record of being water professionals. And there’s one common pattern between all of them. They all told me, you know, if there’s one thing in this water industry is that we suck at marketing and somehow you’re the exact opposite to that. You are a marketing professional that for whatever reason, had a weird epiphany at some point and said, Hey, I want to go to the water industry. How did that happen?

Megan Glover:

That is ironic indeed that it was, yes, I am spent over a decade as a marketing and sales executive and enterprise cloud-based technology. So building software, enterprise software across lots of different industries, MarTech sales, retail, healthcare, ed tech, and water found me is I like to say because I was a concerned consumer of water here in the States circa 2000 and late 2015, we had the Flint Michigan crisis. And that was an epiphany for me as a consumer of water because I wanted to know what’s in my tap water. And I called my water department and asked if I could test my water. And they sent me a consumer confidence report and said, well, we don’t test your water, but here’s this thing called a consumer confidence report. And that didn’t do it for me. You know, I mean, in this day and age where I was buying organic snacks for my children and hormone-free, uh, protein and milk and, uh, and I get my DNA tested through 2.3, me, why couldn’t I have my water tested?

Megan Glover:

So what I like to say is water found me, but my background in marketing and specifically providing and building solutions that help consumers, right. And help people do their jobs better kind of allowed me to think about, well, if I wanted to get my water tested, how would I do that? That was kind of the original idea and managed to take that to a couple of mentors and investors of mine and raise a little bit of capital. And within six to eight weeks, 120water launched. And that’s really the original origin of the story

How Megan Glover shaped 120Water

Antoine Walter:

Talking of 120water at listen to your very good interview with my good friends, Jim Lauria and Adam tank on the Water we talking about podcasts. And I was just thinking, when listening to you, you know, one 20 water could have had many shapes. And one of those shapes when I was listening to you explaining that, you know, many people were concerned about this difficulty to have access to a very costly water sample. And I was thinking, you know, why not build the Groupon of water? You collect all of them and say, Hey, let’s get a better price for our water testing. So in all the reality, that might have been your, your venture, but it is not so far. I understand what you’re doing. So can you pitch us 120 water?

Megan Glover:

120Water, so who we are today. So we are a digital water platform and that platform consists of cloud-based software point of use kits and services that government agencies, water systems and facilities use to manage their drinking water programs that protect our public health.

Antoine Walter:

So now there’s 120Water, but what was existing before? What are you replacing?

Megan Glover:

Actually when we launched 120water, we actually thought it was going to be a business to consumer company. And why we exist? There’s still a need for that. But what we found as we were launching the company was that our solution was very, very applicable to water professionals, trying to skate to the pack and, and execute these new water regulations and water demands in a post Flint world. So what was happening when our very first water utility customer in Pittsburgh, they actually had opened up a consumer water testing program. So anybody within their distribution could call them and request a water testing kit. The problem was they didn’t have any infrastructure to deliver those kits. It was taking the beta 4,000 kit backlog, and it was taking them four months to fulfill that program. And so we heard about this, we went there, we said, we have this very modern, you know solution to this problem.

Megan Glover:

We can come in here and clean this up and no problem, and sure enough, we won that business. And so we ended up taking that 4,000 kit backlog and taking it from four months to 14 days and completely modernizing how those results are getting to the consumer. So at the end of the day, they can cut through the science and say, is my water safe to make easy math? Right? Can I drink this water? Should I be concerned? So we completely modernized. And re-engineered that process. And then have gone on to build a business around that, around compliance and that, you know, those types of programs.

120Water’s path from B2C to B2B

Antoine Walter:

So it was supposed to be B2C and it ended up being B2B. The kits are still the same, but what you change in between is all the way they are handled. So basically all the logistics around and you bring that digital element.

Megan Glover:

That’s exactly right. So what we replaced is essentially the, the manual field labor, right? I, I am a field contractor. I go to my workshop, I get a paper bag, I get the bottle, I drop it off at the consumer’s house. You know, I pick it up two days later, I drive it to the lab, you know, with all of the point of use testing that now has to occur with all these regulations that just doesn’t scale. And it becomes very, very expensive. So we essentially automate all of that and have real time tracking so that the customer knows every step of the way where those kits are the results as soon as they come in and then the communications back to the end user as soon as possible.

Antoine Walter:

So, you know, when I hear that on one end, it’s, it’s fascinating. And no, if I take my devil’s advocate hat, I’m like, you know, we’re in 2021, come on, let’s do IOT, industry 4.0 or 5.0, or 6.0, and I can pour so many buzzwords at you and put sensors basically at the end, at every tap. And everybody would be just opening their tap. And the sensor is automatically connecting to a satellite via Mars or whatever. You are relying on sturdy proven kits. And you’re saying what was to be improved was everything in between. The kits are just fine,

Megan Glover:

But we say that that last mile in innate making that last mile of, of sampling easy and visible for the utility, and actually the reason why they are good old analytical laboratory tests is because at least here in the US, the EPA is so slow to recognize any methods that aren’t run on a machine in a laboratory. And I’m as an innovator personally excited for the day when we can connect to real-time sensors to bring that data in because for us a result, as a result, as a result and the faster our customers in the market, get those results, the easier that they can make real time decisions. So we may have met the market where they are today of the analytical laboratory testing, primarily that’s where our regulations are today in the US

Harvesting a load of Water Data

Antoine Walter:

I’m French. I think I’m alluding to that too regularly on the, on that podcast. And I’m never afraid to do a bit of French shaming. You know, that there was a regulation in France three or four years ago, which was an enforced to make more analyzes at every waste water treatment plant, because they wanted to measure micro pollutants. And so they started measuring, analyzing, took all the results. And then they found out that they have no way to gather all the data and do anything useful with it. So they were doing all the tests and the analysis feeding databases, and no one was looking at them. And after two years they just stopped the regulation because they were like, okay, we are measuring thing. We are spending money to measure things and we don’t do anything with it. Which drives me to, to my question is you’re making the logistics much easier, but where does the data flow to? What do you do with this data? How do we leverage the data?

Megan Glover:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, again, back to not being in water, starting from enterprise software and business software, bad data in bad data out, right? No data insights, no improved workflow. And so when we build our, you know, our, our software and application, it’s one, how do we make our data electronic? Because I mean, we are replacing paper. We are replacing at best Excel sheets, right? So first it’s, let’s get data normalized in a cloud platform, but then our platform essentially automates all of these workflows, inclusive of compliance that our customers need to do their work. So everything from once the data comes in, if there’s any reporting or notifications that have to happen, we also have predictive tooling. What that means is particularly in the US around service line infrastructure, our customers need to know where these the material types of these lead service lines. So we use the data that’s coming in from the sampling, from their Curbstop and, you know, information from third-party sources to actually feed predictive information back to the utility. So, you know, again, we’re still a five-year-old company and that area of our business is growing. But our whole philosophy is, you know, one, we need to get the data in a unified digital format. And then what are the workflows and predictive indicators that need to happen from there.

Tracking Water Quality with help of 120Water

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the B2C vision you had at the beginning, and then the B2B way, it transformed somehow as an end-user. If I’m doing this testing with my kits and everything is much smoother through your platform, but what do I get, do I also get my results? Do I get my tracking?

Megan Glover:

Yeah. And again, this goes back to me being a marketer, starting with that, that end consumer experience first is actually where we started. So for example, we do lead programs anywhere from lead in daycare facilities, all the way to water systems, you know, just doing standardized lead and copper rule or consumer testing. One of the very first things we created was a, essentially a public transparency dashboard at any point in time, anybody in the community can go to that dashboard and, you know, see, you know, they can see, you know, a service line material. If that information exists, water testing information. When was the last time this tap was tested? What was the result? If there was an exceedance, what was the remediation? So one making that data transparent to the community. And then also that one-to-one communication that you alluded to. So what does the actual consumer get, having their water tested?

Megan Glover:

They receive a wonderful, again, communications driven letter, not scientists driven letter, right? Not EPA driven letter. It’s Hey, we’re going to tell you what the science says, but then we’re also going to explain why there’s no reason to worry. One of the other things that our system does that I think is really important is we actually trigger the remediation as well. So if we get a, an exceedance, you know, if it’s over the action level, we can also drop ship a pitcher filter kit as well. You know, cause one of the things we found very early on working with our customers is we can’t just send them a letter saying they have let go to your home Depot and buy a pitcher filter. They actually want that solution delivered directly to them. So we really try to bundle that up in one, nice, easy to consume package for them.

Antoine Walter:

How often does that happen? How often do you measure something which is outside the threshold where it should be?

Megan Glover:

That is such a wild card question, because it’s all dependent on your age of your infrastructure, corrosion control methods. Here’s the thing though. What I always say, going into a new program, as you’re going to find lead. If you’re an older system, you may find a higher percentage of lead across your distribution system. When we’re dealing in school scenarios and older schools, those, you know, build less than, you know, probably 1970s, it’s not uncommon to see lead in 20% plus of the fixtures that we sample. So that’s why we say you have to start at the end about what are you going to communicate to your stakeholders when you find lead? Cause you’re going to find lead or you’re going to you’re for sure, going to find PFAS. If you are sampling, you’re going to find what you’re sampling for.

How 120Water also helps with Infrastructure Projects

Antoine Walter:

Yeah. That’s the beauty of the water analyzers is when you don’t look for something, you’re quite okay, you don’t find it. But if you start looking to stuff, I mean, every water has some caffeine inside. Not everyone wants to have their coffee when you’re just take water from the tap. So I guess of course, yeah. If you look for something, you find it, you alluded to the infrastructure and I saw on your website that you also help with the infrastructure. How shall I envision that? Is it that if you see that in that part of the city, you see lead coming more and more led or something else, you would then warn the utility and tell them, you know, if you have to prioritize the way you want to replace your network, please start there.

Megan Glover:

Yeah. Yes. That, and I mean, again, the first step in getting the lead out is knowing where you’re going to probably find it. And so part of what our platform does and the programs associated with our platform is helping our utilities and communities better pinpoint where they’re going to find lead. And again, we do that through customer outreach. We do that through predictive intelligence. Again, we do that through you know, combining a lot of their different data sets. So one it’s just helping them kind of pinpoint where they might find lead within their distribution system. We do sequential sampling. So a lot of our customers may actually do some pilots in terms of collecting multiple samples from aligned to see if they can kind of pinpoint where that’s coming from. And then I think the other thing that our platform and we help our customers do is once they know they need to start replacing this or prioritizing where they replace lead, it’s going to the vulnerable populations first. So we track things even down to where we can, what’s the demographic of that location. Are there any pregnant or seeing, you know, children in the home, you know, again, are there other vulnerable characteristics where you might want to prioritize that area of your community over another, in terms of replacement of the lead pipes,

Antoine Walter:

The heart of, of your offering is around this, these water quality. What is the boundary, or do you fix any boundary to what you could be doing in the future is a field like, I don’t know, non-revenue water is something which might be of interest for you, or is it really something you would let to others?

Megan Glover:

Yeah, I think one of the thing about not coming from water that I love and appreciate about it is water is really sourced to tap and it’s massive. And I think one thing we’ve learned at 120 is we start with an idea and inevitably year over year, we expand into another adjacency and we do that because our customers say, well, if you can do this, could you do this? And yeah, actually we can and we can connect it here. And so, you know, in terms of how our solution has grown and I think where we’re going, I mean, we’re going to continue to make sure that we are experts in the lead programs, right? I mean, that’s where we’ve come. That’s where we are. That’s we’ve, we’ve done over 13,000 programs in the US across 26 States. We have more data and experience doing that than probably any entity.

Megan Glover:

So we will never let that go. But there are all other sorts of water quality programs that our clients are tasked with managing that are still very antiquated and need some modernization to them. So when we think about, you know, where are the boundaries and where could we go? We’re kind of in that process of identifying what are the other segments that we should be looking at that have kind of those same characteristics is as lead, not scientifically, but programmatically that could use some modernization and inclusion of sensors. You know, again, an where could we bring in sensors to help provide some more data, especially across things like Legionella and PFAS that need more real-time monitoring that, you know, a sample a year is not going to provide them the best picture.

When Software partners with Hardware

Antoine Walter:

If you go into those new topics like Legionella, like PFAS, is it a point where you partner with established hardware companies and you bring this software and market touch because, you know, if you’re a sensor company, you have a hammer and everything looks like a nail. So you’re not really sure about where the where’s the market. Whereas I would really subscribe to what you were saying about being new to the industry. You have an eye which looks at the problems and then looks for solutions. So back to my questions, would you partner to, to make that happen?

Megan Glover:

Absolutely. A thousand percent. I mean, in fact, that’s the other thing that it was so shocking to me being a newbie and water was how black box and closed off these ecosystems are in water. And it’s not that way in other industries and especially other industries where you had platforms really succeed and help transform industries. And so our philosophy as a business is we would much rather partner with best of breed technologies, whether it’s IOT or other software applications or other services, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel on our own. So we have an entire partner ecosystem where we actively look for partners. That may be good fits not only now, but even down the line.

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned that you’re active in 26 States. I would guess one of them must be California.

Megan Glover:

We do have a client in California. It’s not the most active state.

How trust in Drinking Water is not a given – even in developed countries

Antoine Walter:

Okay. Now I’m just asking, because I read a study from 2003, which was saying that 80% of the people in South California don’t drink tap water because they don’t believe in the concept of tap water, or they don’t believe that it’s safe to drink. And California, I’m not the best expert in geography, but it’s quite far from Flint. And that study was 12 years before. So it looks like there is a long way to go before everyone in the U S gets kind of trust into the tap water. Is it a mission you want to fulfill on the long run?

Megan Glover:

Yes. I mean, absolutely. I think I say this a lot when I speak to utility professionals, when they say, well, we don’t have competition. Yes, you do. The bottled water industry is your competition. And right now they are better marketers than you and their product. And they probably have an inferior product, but they do a better job marketing what’s in their water. You know, again, part of our goal as a company is to make the quality of water more visible so that consumers feel very comfortable drinking that tap water. And we’ve seen that over and over again! Again, Pittsburgh, that initial customer of ours, the amount of distrust between the customer and the utility, you could feel it, you could cut that with a knife. And now, you know, five years later, they are such an example of good, you know, their customers are thrilled that they’re actually replacing their aging infrastructure. They’re doing this testing whenever they want. And so it really is a, I think those are models or examples of when utilities focus on marketing and branding and help kind of raise the quality of their own water. I think you can get people drinking more water. I think that is I might be on the far extreme though in the US in that mission. I think it’s one thing to have a mission, but how do you actually put that in practice as a whole is a whole other can of worms!

120Water may help with storytelling around quality

Antoine Walter:

But, but it’s very interesting that, that you mentioned that this marketing element, because had this discussion on, that same microphone with Jacob Bossaer, from BOSAQ, he was mentioning that he intentionally mirrored the marketing of bottling companies to say he’s making premium drinking water, but that actually flows to a tap. So that is something which is maybe, which is today a missing link in our industry. And, you know, I was listening this week to I don’t know if you know, Louis Grenier, I have to, to align a bit in terms of, of marketing. So we have, he has this wonderful podcast called everyone hates marketers, and he was recalling this week, an interview he had with Seth Godin. It was all about, you know, facts that are not going to change people’s minds. You have to, to put yourself in the shoes, have empathy and, and build stories around that. So my question here is you’re bringing facts to people because did they have the, their results, their samples who tell the water is good, just drink it, but still, if they are not convinced, or if they are really kind of reluctant to drink the tap water, that’s not sufficient. You cannot just stop there and say, Hey, it’s good to go chemical, say it.

Megan Glover:

I agree. And I think that is again, I actually did a panel yesterday and I called this out to be one of our number one threats as an industry in the U S that we’re not paying enough attention to, and this is communications and customer communications. I mean, the amount of conferences that I go to where communications isn’t, doesn’t even make it to the agenda or a talk track. And it’s just so integral to the success of what you’re talking about, getting that, that storytelling and that, that, that message across the finish line, because we can only do so much and we can only do so much for free. That’s the other thing, too, the budgets for marketing and communication in water in the U S is almost, non-existent now the budget for when there is a crisis and they have to communicate about that crisis is infinite. But as I like to say, do, why do you want to be in reactive reaction mode when you can actually be proactive? And when something occurs, you know, you have a communication reputation plan in place just to be able to, you know, not react to a crisis, but be proactive in that communication. So long-winded to say, I completely agree with you. And I, you know, I would love to see communications as a discipline in water, become a lot more prominent in the US I think it’s going to need to be,

Antoine Walter:

It’s interesting because you know, there is this, I’m talking a lot over France today, I’m sorry, but there’s this, this French bottling brands I think it was Perrier, when they arrived in the U S it was hard for them to sell bottled water to the Americans, which is there, wasn’t like this tradition of bottled water at the time. And it turns out that 50 years later we have the exact opposite problem. So life is a cycle it’s, it’s almost frightening. You’re doing something, but where to start, where should we start? What is the common story? Our industry has to tell if we wants to bring people back to that tap.

Megan Glover:

And I think though, it’s going to take, I mean, I don’t, I actually I’ve heard that before. And I would love to read a case study on it and actually see how much they actually spent in branding and in the type of executives that it took to actually, you know, get that brand and impede it in people’s minds. Because I think it’s going to take that level of talent and muscle. It’s not going to take people in water to do that. Just point blank. I think it’s, I think it’s going to take an entire industry to adopt water as a sector that they want to modernize it. And I think we’re, you know, we’re seeing that on the energy side a bit in the US, I mean, again, the energy as a sector has invested more in marketing and branding to kind of level up all of the education that’s needed around sustainability and conservation and whatnot. That same thing needs to happen in water, but I think it’s going to take experts outside of water to educate water on, on what we need to do. But yeah, I think that’s a great example.

120Water as one of the World’s Most Innovative companies

Antoine Walter:

So I guess it’s going to take companies which are innovative. So I’m pretty glad to talk with one of the most innovative company in the world. Actually, you are on the top of that list. So I think we got a glimpse of what takes you at that place, but what’s your interpretation of being first, far in the ranking? What makes you different?

Megan Glover:

Yeah, that, that, that was a really cool as a, as again, as bootstrapped. I mean, I can’t, this business was bootstrapped. I mean, literally I was filling bottles on my kitchen table and to actually get that notification that we were among the most innovative, I mean, just kind of blew my mind. I’m like, how did we get from there to there? And, but honestly, I think it’s because we’ve never, we’ve never said no, and that could be crazy, or that could be the best thing that ever happened. But we made that list for launching our wastewater monitoring solution. And, you know, our customer came to us and said a state wide customer. So, you know, as territory in Indiana came to us and said, we need to stand up a wastewater monitoring network in like 10 days. And so anyway, we basically said, okay, is this enough? Is this close enough to our core competency and capabilities that we could do this? And if so we’ll do it. And sure enough, between our laboratory networks, our kits and the way our platform is set up, we were really able to meet that demand. And, you know, and we didn’t say no, you know, and I think that’s part of the innovation that we brought to the market is listening to our customers to the extent where we believe in it, they believe in it let’s go.

Antoine Walter:

So basically you were advocating for that movie. Yes, man. So in your case, sorry, you mentioned that that bootstrap elements, but I would say that is now history for 120Water because you, you just closed it. I mean, you, you closed some month ago a series a, so now you’re really changing levels. I mean, you raised seven millions, right?

Megan Glover:

Yes. yeah. We a series a seven, 7 million. We’ve now added a little bit to that as well for hyper-growth so, yeah, I mean, we are kind of series a we’re venture backed. We have over 50 employees, which to go from zero to 50 is pretty great. We’ve all grown up and it’s an exciting place to be for us.

Can 120Water follow a hypergrowth path?

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned one word. Usually I’m the one who raises this hypergrowth question. I’m annoying all my guests to ask them if hypergrowth is possible in the water branch, you come with that. So thanks for that. The unicorn path is like you have to multiply by three and by three and by two and by two, and then you reach 1 billion, you did 250% growth last year. So you are on leg. One of that path is – that’s the golden question – is hypergrowth a suitable strategy for the water sector, in your opinion?

Megan Glover:

I don’t know. You know, I think our philosophy is we just want to grow as reasonable and fast as possible as the market will allow, but I think the market has to be ready for it because you can’t manufacture growth. And I think you have to have venture capital. That’s willing to understand that the market needs to dictate when they’re ready to buy innovation in water. And that’s what I’ve been very clear with our investors that we found is that, you know, we can’t manufacture growth or put a flashy thing in front of customers and, you know, magically budget appears for them to buy. So I think I don’t believe that every company in water should be venture backed. I think at some point in time, we won’t grow a hundred percent year over year or even 60%. And that’s going to be okay

Antoine Walter:

More than okay. In that sector. I mean, 60% you’re a rockstar.

Megan Glover:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. And that’s going to be a okay, because that means that we’ve captured the set of the market that wanted to be early adopters will now wait for kind of that middle part of the market. And but yeah, I mean, I didn’t start one 24 a quick in and out. We just started to build a really sustainable business to modernize, you know, water quality, and we’re following the pace of how fast the market wants to grow.

Crossing the Chasm as a young Water Company

Antoine Walter:

So you would say that you are at this crossing the chasm phase that you have to, to move from these early adopters to, to this early majority. So I’m not mentioning that just to mention that many companies die in that, in that stage. Not at all. I wouldn’t try to put a spell on you, but you mentioned that you, you, you, you moved from zero to 50. Do the 50 already work with you or are you still in that growing up phase?

Megan Glover:

Yeah, I think we’ve my philosophy is you want to hire just ahead of growth, but not too far ahead to your point where you stall. And so I think we’ve you know, we were very responsible during COVID because we didn’t know what the market was going to do. And so we stalled a little bit of growth. So part of that growing to 50 was a little bit making up in some areas that we, we held off in, and now we’re at a really good place. I mean, I think we were going to add, you know, a handful of heads here and there, but we’ve done the majority of our hiring that we’ll do for a while. And then as you know, I mean, this, this market is so channel driven as well, that a lot of our sales are attributed to our partner ecosystem, some of our channel partners. So, you know, we want to make sure that we have enough direct folks and full-time employees, but at the same time, how do we build out that ecosystem? And that, that global channel ecosystem that is, that is so important for growth here in this market too.

Antoine Walter:

So you mentioned, and you’re absolutely right, that you cannot manufacture growth, but to watch me do that tricky transition to a tricky question, they are sensor manufacturers in that market. Hey, manufacturer growth / sensor manufacturer. Hey, so, so brilliant. And they might not have these digital acumen and this market acumen that you have. And I think I read that in, in Paul O’Callagan’s PhD thesis, that he was mentioning that there is no water unicorn. It just doesn’t exist. There’s not one. And there’s a reason it’s that usually before a water company becomes a water unicorn, they get bought out by a company who, who needs some external innovation. So what’s your path is that path. Or at some point you ring the bell in New York IPO, and you are that first water unicorn?

Megan Glover:

I wish I had that Crystal ball. I mean, I think there are a number of doors that one 20 water could go down over the course of the next 12 to beyond years and months. And I think we’re exploring all of those. Do we stay as a standalone company and raise some additional funds to do our own acquisitions and really make this a standalone company? Does it make more sense for 120 to be a part of an existing digital water platform? So without good showing cards or whatnot, I mean, we are kind of exploring all of those doors, but that doesn’t change our vision and roadmap for the company, you know, and in terms of where we want to go. And so I that’s my job, right? As balancing the future while also operating the business day to day, making sure we get what we need.

Antoine Walter:

I would have like 2000 additional questions, but I have to be cautious every time I would invite you to come back to that microphone in five years, just to check if you just rang that bell in New York, or if you’re now part of a conglomerate, but I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

Megan Glover:

Absolutely. I w I will be back in five years. I’ll take you up on that.

Antoine Walter:

Oh, let me, book the calendar, just when we’re done with that interview, I really want to see where that’s heading!

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

In this rapid fire question section. I try to keep the questions short. And of course, if you can keep the answer short as well, we keep the rules and don’t worry. I’m always the one cheating inside writing. So my first question is what is the most exciting project you’ve been working on and why?

Megan Glover:

I’m always the first project when we did the entire state of Indiana lead testing in schools, we sent over 500,000 children back to school with safer drinking water.

Antoine Walter:

See, I’m sidetracking from the first question, but what’s your feeling when you, you close that first project? Is it like pure excitement or are you terribly afraid because what could go wrong?

Megan Glover:

Yes. All of the above, all of the above it is the adrenaline, right? I mean, you’re literally building the engine as you’re flying the plane and it’s absolutely terrifying, but to see those results in numbers, it’s just like an out of body lifting experience.

Antoine Walter:

What’s your favorite part of your current job?

Megan Glover:

Oh my goodness. I love our customers. My favorite part of my job is, is talking to a customer about a really, really challenging problem that they’re trying to solve. And just going into ideation mode with them and saying like, how do we solve this together? So really our customers and going in the trenches with them

Antoine Walter:

Sidetrack again, the topic you address, is it something which is really on top of their minds or do you have to tell them why they should matter

Megan Glover:

Right now? The lead topic is, I mean, it’s all consuming. It’s not on the top of their mind. It is their mind. And right now, where are we on the United States? It’s helping them even just say, where do I begin? Like it is so overwhelming and all consuming that that led at least in the U S is very top of mind with all of the Biden infrastructure, as well as they revise lead and copper were visions coming down the pike.

Antoine Walter:

Well, you know, I, I could tell you how wonderful polyethylene is as a replacement to lead, but I’m not here to do my own advertising. Have you ever met Michael Moore by the way, because from an European view and you know, Flint was first this Michael Moore documentary.

Megan Glover:

No, I have met Michael Moore at a conference. He would not remember me from Adam and it was a marketing conference, so I wasn’t even water at the time, but yeah, our, I attended his keynote.

Antoine Walter:

What is the trend to watch in the water industry?

Megan Glover:

Gosh, I think the trend to watch in the industry and I’m biased on this, it’s honestly, I think it’s the digital transformation, I think to your point, there’s a lot of data that’s being analyzed and thrown out there, but it’s what are we going to do with it? And I think it’s going to be very interesting over the next decade to see what gets done with data. That’s the keys, what is going to be done with data?

Antoine Walter:

So data crunching, data analyzes…

Megan Glover:

Data science. I mean, I think if anything, you know, what we proven through our wastewater monitoring solution through a lot of the data science use on predicting lead pipes, is that it is helpful. If you can get massive data sets and use them in the right way, it is very helpful for public health and infrastructure, repairs and whatnot. We just need regulators and industry experts to recognize that as an applicable method,

Antoine Walter:

What is the thing you care about the most when you’re working on a new project and what is the one that you care the least?

Megan Glover:

What I care about most is delivering outcomes for our customers. So I hold my in any large project that we get, I hold my breath. It’s like a, it’s like the longest underwater swim ever. Not because I don’t think we can do it, but we just want to Excel in the outcomes that we deliver. And then my least, my least favorite part is procurement. There are just a lot of projects that either our customers can’t buy us or we can’t compete in that. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a real, it’s a bummer when we can’t work on a project or with a customer that, that needs what we have, but for whatever legacy procurement we can’t, we can’t work.

Antoine Walter:

Do you have sources to recommend, to keep up with the water and wastewater market trends?

Megan Glover:

I love Twitter. I actually, Twitter is my go-to when I just, when I want to just kind of know what’s happened in the Waterworld. I love Twitter. And if you follow me, you can probably follow on Megan Siegel over all of the folks in water that I follow. And then, you know, I think they’re great. They’re great, you know, trade pubs out there that are probably very obvious, but I think podcasts and Twitter for me are, are very much the sleepers of where you’re going to go to find the real trends.

Antoine Walter:

It’s interesting that you do this combination of podcasts and Twitter, because actually the only other of my guests who answered Twitter, it was Adam. It sounds like a pattern. I have to say to me, Twitter is a, is a riddle. It’s difficult to, to follow all of that, but for sure I’ll add your Twitter hashtag and username. See how not professional of Twitter. I am in the footnote of the episode and I’m going to give it a try, thanks to you.

Megan Glover:

I’m a terrible poster, but I enjoy the following. I need to get better at it, but I always get caught up in what do I, what’s the right thing to say that someone would care about.

Antoine Walter:

So last question for today, would you have someone to recommend me to come on that microphone and to be hopefully as awesome as you?

Megan Glover:

Oh gosh. You had some, Oh, you, I mean, you took everyone. I, that I are normally my go tos. I will tell you let’s stay on the theme of communications, the rogue water women out of Texas. If you’ve not connected with them, they they’re revolutionizing how utilities communicate with their customers. So there again, the rogue water is their agency name and happy to put you in touch with them personally, but they are super superstars on that. Let’s see Louisville water. They are again, when we think about branding, branding, tap water, they have really a, they are the case study and kind of the one that everyone goes to Kathy Bailey, if you haven’t had Cathy Bailey from, from Cincinnati is a hoot and literally the godmother of, of all things innovative in managing water and managing a large system at that. So I’m sure I could mention so many more, but there are three awesome women for you right there.

Antoine Walter:

Well, you see, I promise myself to not ask that same question to all of my female guests, because I feel it like a burden to put on you. So I didn’t ask about women in water, but I’m glad to see that there’s a pattern in your recommendations. Megan, it’s been really a pleasure to have this this hour together and yeah. Talk to you in five years or before. Whenever you have your next milestone, let’s have a talk.

Megan Glover:

Let’s do it. This has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Other Episodes:

FREDsense: Revolutionizing Water Quality Monitoring with Biosensor Innovation

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Swirltex: Revolutionizing Wastewater Treatment with Bubbly Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 30 April 2025

Blue Foot Membranes: The Next Evolution in Water Filtration

By Antoine Walter | 16 April 2025

Echo River Capital: Pioneering the Future of Water Innovation

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1001 Fontaines: Engineering Sustainable Water Access Through Social Entrepreneurship

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Amazon’s Water Footprint: Tech Giant’s Quest for Water Sustainability

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The post What’s hidden in your tap water? Don’t worry, your utility doesn’t really know better! appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

BOSAQ is a very ambitious Water Scale-Up aiming to develop innovative and future-proof drinking water solutions.

This episode is part of my series on (successful) Water Entrepreneurship – check it out!

What we covered:

How recycling water and energy in one of the earth’s most remote places (Antarctica) led Jacob to found BOSAQ

How the biggest challenge to overcome the lack of access to drinking water might be political

How bottled water companies’ marketing can and shall be replicated in the water industry

How building a water treatment unicorn involves taking a lot of risks and regularly passing quite close to bankruptcy

How BOSAQ started with only a Business Plan and a Flemish Grant to cover the company’s first 6 months

The fascinating experiment the company enabled, where a restaurant’s toilet and kitchen wastewaters are 100% recycled to be bottled and served back at the restaurant tables

How Jacob attempts to beat capitalism from the inside

How dreaming big is a duty as an entrepreneur

Water cost, IoT, Technology Transfer and so much more!

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Infographic: Jacob Bossaer – BOSAQ

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Jacob on LinkedIn

Have a look at BOSAQ’s website

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi, Jacob, welcome to the show.

Jacob Bossaer:

Thank you very much. We’re really pleased to be here.

Antoine Walter:

So I have many questions for you. Hopefully you have some answers as well, but I have to start with something. I had Matthew silver on that podcast and Ravid Levy who shared me some stories about Antarctica and that’s the very first thing I saw in your path and in your company description. So you also have something to do with Antarctica and if I get it right, it’s almost the source of your company. So can you tell me a bit about that?

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah, absolutely. I graduated as a chemical engineer from university of guns in 2011, but in 2010 they asked me if I wanted to go to Antarctica. No, didn’t ask me. There was a, there was an application for water expedition in general, Antarctica. I didn’t know anything about water, but I wanted to go to Antarctica. So I just applied for the job and I got in the last rounds. But didn’t choose me to choose the other guy there. It was just two left because he was more experienced with water, obviously. Cause I didn’t know anything about what they didn’t know. I just said I did know about it, but I didn’t. So I couldn’t go. And in 2011 I signed my contract, my first contract with Dow chemicals, chemical company, obviously chemical engineer to start in September and in July the same year.

How Jacob Bossaer started his career in Antarctica

Jacob Bossaer:

So I signed that contract in April and in July the same year, they called me back from the Antarctica organization and it asked me if I wanted to go with Antartica anyway, cause like I didn’t want to go anymore. I was like, Oh sure. So I called the Dow and it, they allow me to start later four months later because summer season in Antarctica is four months from November till February. And it was my first job. So I went off, went to Antarctica as water expedition engineer I got to the station and it was literally like, this is your installation. Good luck. And I was like, Oh, how I’m going to do this. So I, I read a lot. I work like a full first three weeks of the mission and I managed to start it up still don’t know how, but I think, because I didn’t know how the system work.

Jacob Bossaer:

It worked because the system that was there had never worked before. It was very bad managed. It was very bad designed. It was never operational. And because I didn’t do, I took a lot of risks, but sometimes luck is in your side basically. And the system worked, I went back four times to Antarctica always in the, in the summer and Antarctic summer. So that’s from the jump the February. And in the meantime I worked in a chemical industry and I I switched jobs. So when I went on Antarctica, I quit my job. When I came back, I got a new job. So that’s for four years. And the last time I went was as expedition leader for the, for the Belgium government, there was a big quarrel about the station with the, with the one who constructed and then the owner Belgian state.

Jacob Bossaer:

And he asked me to resolve the issue. It was very political. So I was actually actually in the middle of a war. I was fighting a wall for the government, which was not my war, a bit naievely. I was very young, was the youngest of the team and still leading the team. I had four cabinets where the defense was with me healthcare science and another cabinet and four experts. It was very, a very big adventure. Cause we flew to South Africa, we stay for a while. We have to negotiate with the company that was a working together with the person that was in Isaiah government, the bad guy. So it was a lot of intrigues, basically politically as well as with the ambassador. And then we flew to Antarctica with a big illusion it’s a freight Blaine from the Russians and went to Nova Scotia, which is the Russian state from there flew 350 kilometers East to the Belgian station.

Jacob Bossaer:

And first they didn’t allow us to get in the station because of the quarrel. So we had to negotiate, finally goes in and then we would go to an illegal set up air space on Antarctica because I’m that it cannot be used for tourism. And they were setting up a tourism base. So went there and the pilot tried to land twice. And then they told us they couldn’t land. But the bias was part of the company that colluded with the opponent of the government. So it’s very dodgy. Yeah. Okay. We didn’t learn. So we went back and then we flew to the Norwegian station. We stayed there for night and then he flew out with a private jet charted by the government. It was a unique experience. To be honest is a really nice, it’s a very different way to travel, but it’s something you can get used to, I suppose.

Jacob Bossaer:

And then I got back to South Africa, it was a trip that costs a lot of money, but it’s taxpayers’ money. And I was not fine with result because the result was actually that the government made a lot of mistakes and they just threw it in the trash because they weren’t, they didn’t want to publish it. And then I said, okay, this is not my fight. I don’t want to be involved. So I, then I stopped working for Antarctica cause I worked for the former guy, worked for the new people. The foreign guy was we installed again. But I thought I said to myself, this is not what I want to do. I want to make a real difference in the world. And because I was technically involved very deep into the Antarctic station, princess Elisabeth as it was called, I started my own company because the particular thing about the station is that it runs a hundred percent on renewable energy. I was thinking if you can recycle water, because that’s what I did recycle the water in one of the most extreme environments in the world you can do it anywhere. And that’s how the idea evolved to BOSAQ, which is the sustainable water company, where we provide decentralized supply of drinking water with the means of renewable energies. So that’s actually the starting point for me,ufor BOSAQ.

How Antarctica was Jacob Bossaer’s inspiration to create BOSAQ

Antoine Walter:

So basically you, you learned everything the hard way and you were thinking if I’m able to do it the hard way I can do it in any kind of other environment in the world, it’s going to be easier. Probably even if still challenging. What was the temperature in Antarctica?

Jacob Bossaer:

It’s actually okay. It’s between minus five and minus 35 minus it’s summer. So that’s but it’s actually quite okay because it’s dry. It’s really dry the climate. It’s one of the dryest in the world. So if it’s minus five, you can work with your t-shirt outside. No problem at all. If there’s no wind, you burn immediately. Cause the hole in the ozone layer is the thinnest over Antarctica and New Zealand. So you get very, very, very careful, but it’s actually a very nice environment. We were in the mounts, super beautiful. I went there, I went with the, with the snow scooter. We did hiking albinism 80% of time. It’s a without clouds. It’s 24 hour sun obviously. Cause in the, in summertime there it’s a beautiful, a beautiful environment. There’s also for me the first and last time that I experienced silence. It’s very strange as driving with it with a motorcycle.

Jacob Bossaer:

Well it would snow scooter over the ice planes. I stopped and I walked for a few hundred meters and then I sat down and the only thing here is your breath and the cracking of your clothes. But as only you don’t hear wind cars are not trees that it was true. You don’t hear birds because there are no birds. You don’t hear noise in the background from things that happened. It’s a hundred percent science and the force of nature is so overwhelming and such simplicity. It’s almost empowering, but it’s also, it makes you feel very, very small. It was a really, really nice experience. So power of nature. Yeah. Very, very clearly present in Antarctica.

How BOSAQ is a physical treatment company despite Jacob Bossaer’s background

Antoine Walter:

You’re a chemical engineer, which means if you look at the water treatment world, there is a full part of it, which is made of chemicals and which are almost chemical way to treat water. And if I get it right, your solution has little to do with that. Is that a paradox or did you have an epiphany?

Jacob Bossaer:

I don’t think it’s a paradox. What I do think is everything is chemistry. Because everything consists out of atoms molecules. So everything is chemistry, but you have the good chemistry in the wrong chemistry because I think chemical industry, although from a public point of view, they may be not sustainable. It’s actually the industry that makes most things sustainable because the most of innovation, new products, new, more sustainable biodegradable prize, they come from the chemical industry. But I think it’s more a public opinion thing rather than the realistic thing, what chemical industry does. On the other hand, you have the bad chemicals saying that really polluting chemicals and in our solution, should we make sure that we avoid these chemicals? So that’s where the bad chemistry basically is being avoided. And our solutions are not chemically based are physically based, which is obviously a lot more sustainable than a physical chemical, a water treatment plant, which we don’t do, obviously. Yeah.

How Jacob Bossaer launched BOSAQ

Antoine Walter:

So w what was your start with BOSAQ? Was it like, I have that cool process, which I saw working in Antarctica, let me replicate it. Or what was your first act?

Jacob Bossaer:

When you start as an entrepreneur, nobody teaches you how to do them. So you’re very naive. That’s the first thing from a technical point of view, it was quite okay. Although I knew very fast. I lack the skills to do what I wanted to do. So the first thing I actually did, it was networking and network a lot, a lot, but a lot of people in Belgium to make sure that I knew the right people to go to. And the second thing I did is writing a business plan. Now, a business, nobody reads that, but it’s very good to make it because you overthink things you always never think about. So it was a good exercise for me. And I found out that from writing a business, I said, I’m not going to be able to do this. I’m not smart enough. I’m not the technical Einstein basically.

Jacob Bossaer:

So I need some money who helps me to do this. And then I asked a friend of mine with whom I studied, but he did a, she was always the best in school. So he was also a Laureate. I don’t know how to said it in English. He was the best in school. And he also won a prize for his master thesis. So he’s a brilliant guy, but he’s also a very he has also a very high IQ, so he’s very good with people and I call him and he just came back from seven months of world traveling and told him, I need you. Do you want to join the idea that I want to, I want to set up. And he said, if you can make sure I have a certainty of six months I’m in. And we worked together on a subsidy from the Flemish government. We got the grant and we started off at the day. We got the grant, he quit his job. And two days later he was sitting at the desk with me working on the idea that we that we are doing right now being decentralized drinking water supply. That’s a nice story.

Antoine Walter:

Is the Idea, the technical thing you’re delivering or is the Idea your, your vision of the impact that you want to have?

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah. The idea is obviously the technical part, because that’s where it comes from. But like I said, you start very naively now, drinking water, even more than just water is a very political product. And that was my Navy. I thought, yeah, drink when everybody needs it so easy, the market is there. So let’s start a company. And then you bump against the boundaries, which are the political ones. And that’s where the technological Idea evolve to a visionary idea. I think because I think the vision of BOSAQ is one of our strongest selling points. We do not sell technology. Although we consider ourselves a technology company, not as well as utility company, which is a big difference. So we develop patents, develop new technology. We look at new ways on how treating better, less chemicals, less impact, less energy consumption. So all these things are really important to us, but I sell an Idea, an Idea of having drinking water available for everybody.

Jacob Bossaer:

And that’s also what you have to sell when you talk to governments and the political gain from providing drinking water to a community is quite high. So you have a good leverage there, but it’s really the vision that you have to remove to the people that want to get elected next term. So if you get that vision over to them, they buy into it and your technology has to be good. It has to be on top. It has to be the best. Why, because you’re working with public health and for yourself as a company, if something goes wrong, you’re to blame in your company, especially when you’re young and your startup. And you’re not very known if you do one bad project, you’re out of the market immediately. So we are obliged to ourselves to make sure that our products are topnotch. So we see yourself as well as product leaders or product leadership is the main goal of the company set up basically. But it’s not that we sell. It’s really the ID of providing in a sustainable way, clean drinking water, which is safe for everybody who drinks it for a longer period of time.

How BOSAQ uses similar marketing strategies than bottling water companies

Antoine Walter:

So this clean drinking water has a name for you. It’s this premium drinking water. I mean, that’s what you find on your website. And let us start with a definition. What is premium drinking water? Because when you say that to me, you know, it sounds like, an add campaign for bottle of water company and that it’s premium because that’s what you should give to babies – I’n really extrapolating here. But your take is obviously very different.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yes and No, because we also have a bottling water company, which I’m going to go into a bit later, but the word premium, I think it’s necessary to communicate it’s marketing obviously. But what we do with our technology provides the best quality of drinking water. The problem is that 80% of Europeans do not trust water from the tap 80%. Yeah. Which is huge. Belgium is one of the worst countries concerning drinking water consumption from tap water, most Belgiums buy bottles. It is the same in how does the complete opposite. So it’s really country dependent.

Antoine Walter:

What is their concern with it?

Jacob Bossaer:

Not safe,medicines in it or drugs or whatever, just perception. And that’s also, this is due to the fact that the marketing of the bottled water industry is very fierce. Because if you think about it, a bottled water company, that’s not a water production company, it’s a water transportation company. And if you look at it like that, you get a completely different view on what water is, because what we do with our technology, we make water that’s a lot more controlled than the water comes out of the ground. But the perception is obviously different because the marketing machines behind these companies are huge. They, the, the money they throw at it is enormous, but I think there’s a shift. There’s a shift in, in people understanding that, yeah, it’s ridiculous to transport water from one source all over the world. And I’m going back to the bottled water.

Jacob Bossaer:

We do. We provide premium bottled water for now only in the high-end hospitality market. So what we do, we build actually a very small drinking water factories. We put it in a hotel and the water in environment can be sea water can be river. Water can be rain. Water can be ground. What? It doesn’t really matter. You need a source of water, but it can be any water. We’re going to purify it up to a standard, which is actually a hundred percent H2O. So pure, pure, pure water, which actually not very healthy because you need minerals. What are we going to do? We’re going to add minerals again, but we bet on technology that we can choose what Reynolds we add. So we can make San Pelligrino. We can make Perrier. We can make any kind of water we want. We can even make water for sport.

Jacob Bossaer:

With a lot of magnesium or for children with a lot of calcium. So we can do whatever we can alter the taste. We can alter the content of the water. So we can really play with the health benefits of certain minerals in water. Then we’re going to bottle it in glass or metal. So no plastic you’re going to close it, or we’re going to seal it as a premium bottled water. We’re going to provide to the customers in the hotel. Customers drink at the bulk, comes back to an installation. It’s cleaned onsite, it’s refilled, re-sealed, re-capped on site. And what you actually have done is eliminated a hundred percent of your transport of water. And we become therefore our production company instead of world transportation company. So the CO2 footprint is gone, but also 40% of the costs of bottled water is transport also gone. So you have a more sustainable product, which is cheaper than the conventional product.

Jacob Bossaer:

And that’s what I’m saying before. Also in the dark here at GF Piping Systems, if you provide a sustainable solution, make sure it’s also economical, viable, and that’s what we exactly do with this concept. Of course, this is a concept that BOSAQ is not focusing on and it’s a concept we tested on Tomorrowland twice. It had a huge positive feedback. Huge. yeah. Then inquiry that 99% of people were very positive about the concept. So we knew, okay, this is something. And now we have one client, South Africa, it’s a high-end eco resort where we applied this. And now it’s more for technical augmentation to make sure that technology behind it is robust, very robust. Then we can really scale it up, but it’s going to be another company part of the BOSAQ group, obviously. And that’s also where premium, of course, it’s a marketing word, but it’s really to make people understand premium is about the water quality, it’s not about having a big name like spine Belgium or San Pellegrino in worldwide, or, Perrier worldwide, they call it premium wise. Other one, not premium. It’s just a concept of quite, it’s just an Idea. And the water we provide is premium. And most what, even that one, it is premium water, but drink water companies don’t market it like that.

How BOSAQ delivered an amazing direct reuse demonstration project

Antoine Walter:

What’s interesting is that if you look at bottled water, not so long ago, it wasn’t a thing. They made a big marketing Fort and they imposed it, that it didn’t know the, this, I would say terrifying figure as a water engineer of 80% being afraid of, or having concerns about tap water. But when you think of it too, you’re using the same weapons and you’re saying, okay, you want to put that on that marketing level, let’s do the same. That’s a very interesting way. I didn’t intend to do it in that sequence of thing, but I’ve seen one of your references and you’re going to tell me if it’s the most extreme one, but where you have a very short loop to reuse a water. And that is at a restaurant in Belgium. If I, if I’m right, is that the same kind of bottled water or is it another different concept that you’re developing?

Jacob Bossaer:

No, it’s exactly the same note. That project was a showcase project. It’s not something that we want to commercialize. So it was with with funds of European union and more to showcase technology. But what we do there is actually be going from Blackwater, which is toilet water and waste water from the kitchen. We recycled a hundred percent up to bottle of water again now from a quality point of view, no issue at all. So we also, the Belgian food administration was involved to make sure that everything was stable. There’s no issue, but it just obviously the mindset people that, Oh, it’s coming from that. I’m not going to drink this, but that’s just a psychological thing. And just to show what is possible,

How Jacob Bossaer aims for Impact with BOSAQ

Antoine Walter:

Which brings you back to the marketing element. If you look at Singapore, they market, the NeWater, because it had to have a name and they have this awesome beer, which is brewed from this NeWater. And that’s what we say, Hey, look, it’s even tasty. So yeah, exactly,

Jacob Bossaer:

Exactly. I think I’m raised as a person that is against capitalism, but to beat capitalism, you get to become a part of it. How strange that sounds. Now my brothers see I’m from big family, six grand sisters. We all have that social incentive in us because my parents, they really make sure that we, that we are people that care about the nature care about the world. We do something back. So my brothers, a lot of my brothers, they set them against the world as a capitalistic system where people make too much money for just small percentage. And I thought I’m going to do differently. I’m going to use that capitalistic system to make a difference, but it’s only because when you get big, you can make a real change. Now it’s good. One, bruh. I don’t say that my brothers are doing something wrong, but they give something to charity.

Jacob Bossaer:

They don’t get himself involved in the real consumption industry. And I said, no, I’m going to use capitalism to make a change. And I think the biggest fear I should have is to not follow the same capitalistic route, that a lot of companies that earn a lot of money do and stay true to myself, my own beliefs, but I have I’m very well surrounded first in my family and the people that work within BOSAQ. Everybody that works within BOSAQ has to comply with the 10 commandments of BOSAQ. And the 10 Commandments is a framework of BOSAQ, a value framework where the idealistic view on the world is a necessity to work with BOSAQ. So everybody’s a bit naive in a good way that we want to change the world for the good. And if you have that as a company in your DNA, I’m a hundred percent convinced that we can make a change for the good, I never start a company to become rich.

Jacob Bossaer:

I start a company to make impact. And that’s what BOSAQ is about. We want to make impact, but we’re not scared of earning money. Obviously, if you want to grow, if you want to grow your business, if you want to have more impact, you need to grow. So you need to have money to do that. So we are earning money. I’m also the first to say that people have to pay for drinking water. It’s not free. It’s a human basic, right? Absolutely. But it’s not free because food is also human basic right. And it’s also not for free because you have to do effort to make water drinkable. And there we come to the value of water. What value does water have? Because for a farm it’s different than for a company that use a lot of water in a schooling system. If the company, if they don’t have culinary cat operator company, and the people have to be laid off, but if you take too much water of the river for your cooling station, ships can’t run anymore.

Jacob Bossaer:

So everything is connected. And what is, it is a very good example of how interconnected everything is, because if you don’t have water, you don’t live. So it starts already there. And every advancement in this world in industry is water based. And you see it from back in the history is big civilizations. Like the pharaohs in Egypt relied on fresh water from the Nile to make sure that they became a big power. They had food that it could, it’s always connected with the way of living. The luxury we have in the West is based on water in the end. And it always comes back to water, and I, of course, it’s easy to say I’m working in water, but if you think about it, how important water is for everything we do, yeah. Then you cannot underestimate the value of it.

How Jacob Bossaer plays with the rules of capitalism to do good

Antoine Walter:

It’s a very interesting take, which reminds me of a conversation I had with Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer on that same microphone where we were saying how important he was explaining that when you bring back the rivers in the cities, basically you bring them to their, their, their ground essence. They, they will build around those rivers. So you have to see those rivers again. And it was also citing a number of which is that every dollar you invest in water actually has a $4 feedback. So return on investment in water is pretty high. And what you just told me about this take at somehow capitalism reminds me of, you know, the monopoly game, the monopoly game has been created by someone who was really against capitalism and basically the game was set so that people understand capitalism so that they can fight against it. Of course that vanished, and now everybody’s just playing monopoly. But just to say, it sounds like there’s a kind of filiation with what you do, which is very interesting. There’s one thing in your business model. And I don’t know if that was here from day one, because you say you started with your business model, but a portion of what you’re owning goes into a special funds. Can you tell us something about that?

Jacob Bossaer:

So we set up a foundation which is called Water Heroes, and it’s a foundation that supports really the communities with people that we don’t have anything to provide for themselves. And we provide technology to provide clean drinking water. So it’s 10% of the profits that goes there from the company, of course, a young company, so we don’t make profit yet, but every time I’ve got talking about Antartica, I get paid for that, that money goes through to the nonprofit. I wrote a study for the BMW foundation. They pay quite well, goes to the nonprofit. And we also have clients that for CSR reasons donate to water heroes. And Water Heroes is really, it’s actually a result of my education from my parents, doing something good back for the world, if you’re successful. And it’s exactly what we do. But that 10% is not something that is lightly taken that decision because in our shareholder agreements with our investors, it’s there.

Jacob Bossaer:

So they can’t say if there are dividends, 10% of this will never go to them. It will go to the foundation. And I think if we get investors and they say, Oh, we don’t agree with that. We don’t want this world. Then they are not the right investors. So we obliged everybody who financially is involved within BOSAQ to give something back to community, because the fact that we can live the way we live is a gift, basically, compared to all these other people who don’t have it, 2.2 billion people, not having access to clean drinking water on a regular basis. We have that. So do something back to the community. And it’s also sustainable concept in a sense that Water Heroes, is only getting its funds from industry. It doesn’t get a funds from government. It’s an absolute no-go that we get subsidy of something for projects.

Jacob Bossaer:

So again, it’s a sustainable setup. See, because if Water Heroes becomes bigger, it buys its products at BOSAQ. It’s geared for Bosak from a commercial point of view. But if a bossa grows, then what he has grows as well, because they get more funds from Basak. So it’s communicating vessels. And I think this is the, is an ideal setup of charity because it’s sustainable concept. You don’t rely on a government that pays you every year, that same amount and if there’s a crisis in government, on pay anymore, you can’t. So no, we a hundred percent said, no, this has to be single concept that piece itself. And I believe in this because if believe every company worldwide does the same after, as we do, you have different worlds, a hundred percent.

How Jacob Bossaer shaped BOSAQ’s company culture

Antoine Walter:

It’s interesting because you are applying your company culture to your employees, which I have to leave with this 10 commandments of both sack. And you also have the similar setup with your investors. So we see that you, you said you started from the business model. Still the, this impact element is really, I would say the vertical thing that unites everything you do. It seems to be like that. At least

Jacob Bossaer:

It’s real and it’s, I want it to be real. You know, what happens a lot, especially with bigger companies is that they buy themselves the green label. We don’t want that. We do not brag about being sustainable. It’s part of our business. And I believe that any young business that starts now has to be sustainable and not brag about, Oh, how look, how sustainable you are. Now, for example, companies like Coca Cola, they have to do that because they don’t have another option. They were founded when sustainability was not even an issue, but it’s very difficult for these companies to have that image as sustainability for us, it’s a lot easier. And I think it has to be part of our business base.

Antoine Walter:

It will almost be a crime. I mean, if you’re in the water industry and you’re not sustainable, it’s that you do extra things in order not to be sustainable. So it would be strange in that world, but nevertheless, there’s such sustainability where you can do a bit of something and say, Hey, what I do is already sustainable. Or you can say, Hey, I actively do my part and you are actively doing your part so

Jacob Bossaer:

Well, I think it’s important as well. The first thing we asked GF Piping Systens as a supplier of us, especially when we’re going to bigger orders with them is we ask them, can you send me your sustainability charter? And not because I want to, yeah. I want to make a point obviously, but also we, we want that we work with companies that also believe in that transition to more sustainable. Yeah, exactly. And that’s, for us, that’s a, it’s difficult as a startup because you don’t have that much weight. What do we order from GF Piping Systems as a startup? And that’s not going to be, I hope in a few years, it will be massively more than you have more power to oblige your suppliers to also walk the talk exactly. Like you say, but I think it’s a responsibility of process companies. We have to, to share this idea with everybody.

Jacob Bossaer:

And it’s also, if you want to go to a sustainable future where everybody has more rights than they have, now that it’s the way to go. The pure capitalistic system, like it is been operated for decades. I don’t believe in, I don’t believe it’s done. And also believe that the younger generation, which is the biggest part of population, people don’t understand. And it’s the biggest part. But I think in Nigeria is the average age is under 20. I think the 200 million people in Nigeria, I’m just saying, so the future is that the young and they have, I think they really understand what they’re have to do to make sure that their future is secure for them and their kids. And so I’m very positive about it, but yeah,

How to build a monster in the Water Industry

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the startup elements and on that same microphone, I had to talk with Gaetane Suzenet there, I would say a couple of weeks ago. And she was mentioning that in the water world, there’s a lot of startups, a lot. I mean, understand me. It’s not IT but still there’s quite a bunch of startups and there are some majors and in between, there’s not so much scallops. And she was saying, that’s a reason for that is that whether it was not your ambition from day one to build the monster, or if you’re really innovative enough, chances are you get bought by a major. When I listen to you, it sounds rather to me like your ambition is to build a monster – monster in a positive way. So let’s say build a unicorn. Absolutely.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m, I’m not afraid to say that I started this company not to have a company of 10 millions of turnover. Sit on my couch, relax, earn good money and be happy. That’s not what I intended to do. I told my Peter who started with me, the company, other, if you do this, we’re going to do this good. So we’re going to go for impact. And that’s you see that old decision? We think when the company, we always in three years and a half, we’ve been almost three times bankrupt. Not because we’re doing bad, but just when you investing hugely in what coming, this is what you have to do as well. And that’s of course, to grow as fast as possible because for us growth is equals impact. Not equals more money on our bank account. Of course it’s a part of it, but you need that to invest, to grow again and its impact.

Jacob Bossaer:

And that’s what I want. I want to have an impact, I want to have a real impact worldwide, and we want to become number one worldwide in decentralized drinking water supply, because we think we have a very good concept of providing drinking water to all these people around the world at the cheapest, total cost of ownership. And I want to just have that impact. And this is my dream is I’m a dreamer. I think it’s also important as an entrepreneur to dream, but my dreams are huge. I want to be the first having a drink, one installation on Mars. It’s it’s a real dream! It is going to happen? I don’t know, but it’s a dream. And I think being able to dream and something for my mom always said, dream, dream, dream. And I keep dreaming. And I think the dream is for me, that’s what I want. I want to reach you. And I dream big. It’s part of me. It’s part of the company. It’s part of the people that work in BOSAQ. And I think we also have a unique product, basically drink water. It’s such a huge market. So you can dream big. It’s not like you have a very niche thing that only a few people in the world would need. You have something that everybody needs every day, 7.5 billion people today. And in a few years about 10 billion people. So it’s something big, so you can dream big I believe.

Antoine Walter:

But “big” in that industry is also is quite special because when you think of it, the biggest company in the world, even now, even bigger, if you consider that the number one might be buying the number two, but it’s still 5% of the market. So, so big is still, I mean, it’s a portion of, of such a huge cake that is still tremendously big, but it’s not like you, you were mentioning Coca-Cola Coca-Cola they have Pepsi against them. And if you take the two of them, they are probably 90% of the market. So it’s a bit different in the water world.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah, that’s true. But that’s also, if you look at the market value of Coca Cola and you look at the market value of drinking water, that’s also a huge, huge difference. The thing is that not everybody drinks, Coca Cola, but everybody drinks, water, everybody. It’s not because you like it. It’s just, you need it. There’s a difference. And for me, I don’t want to be the biggest. I want to be the biggest to have impact. And if it’s only 40 million people, I provide drinking water. It’s 5% of this 850 million people who never have extra drinking water and say, you have a hundred companies who do the same as me. Then we have solved already a challenge that’s there. So it’s not from the megalomaniac point of view, that I want to be the biggest it’s from an impact point of view.

Jacob Bossaer:

I want to be the biggest. I want to have as much impact as possible to have as much reach as much people as possible because I can assure you the biggest joy I feel working on this company is when people come to you almost crying and are so grateful that finally, after all these years, they have good quality drinking water and that it can give them to their kids in a safe way. Don’t get sick anymore. And people, they come to the almost crying as the best thing you can have as an entrepreneur, you really feel you have made an impact in the community at the same time you’re growing your company.

How Jacob Bossaer wants to contribute to the UN SDGs with BOSAQ

Antoine Walter:

But what did we fail as an industry that in 2021, it’s still a blue ocean and the blue fields that there’s, I mean, now I’m talking in almost an aggressive way to look at things. I mean, when you, when you say 2.2 billion people not access to drinking water, of course it’s a terrible story to them. But in terms of marketing, that’s a huge market. It’s a blue ocean. So many people you can do so many things. How is it possible when you think that water is, I mean, you cannot live without water. Every civilization has traces of water associated to the civilizations. It’s really entrenched in our behaviors and in our lives. And still it is a blue ocean. So why does the water sector need a BOSAQ

Jacob Bossaer:

Mindset? It’s like I said, we don’t sell products. We sell a mindset. If I can explain to a government that buying at BOSAQ is winning the next elections, then you have an impact for them as well. It sounds a bit wrong, obviously, but it’s actually what we do. You gotta be honest with what you’re doing. A politician is elected to make sure to provide for the people that elect them. And bringing, especially de-centralized requests, but is very visible. It’s a huge impact in society so people can connect the good impact on society to the political level. Now, what happened with water for decades is first of all, it’s not liberalized. So private companies were not involved in the industry. And it was also treated from an NGO point of view, which I don’t have nothing against any NGO, but a good example, Rwanda stable, a lot of NGOs like to operate there.

Jacob Bossaer:

You have 10 villages, they all need water, what happens in NGOs? They go to this 10 villages. They all have their own drink, water system. One fails. The other doesn’t can’t follow anymore because he doesn’t know the technology. There is no support. There is no, there’s a lack of coordination. And it doesn’t work. Now I talk for example to the government Liberia as well. They have a huge challenge with regulating the market because they are not powerful financial, powerful enough to provide drinking water themselves, but you have 500 players in the market. The pride week, or with the result is that their quality, lack of quality, lack of supply, lack of, and if you involve, I think the approach that we do is not going bypassing the government, but use the government to create an impact is different. That business model is different and maybe it’s not going to work so far.

Jacob Bossaer:

It really worked for us, but he’s not going to work, but I believe it’s the way to go because you approach the drinking water from a completely different point and it has, and it has been done. What it has been an oil was government only, or it was a NGO, but the combination private government with that clear proposition as we have is quite new. You of course have partnerships, but that’s government because government is leading there. They want to have their seats political, but that’s something we don’t do. We do politics in our sales process. But as soon as we have the contract, we work as a private company providing good quality drinking water to provide the people there. And I think that concept is not new, but it’s new for the water market. And I think, yeah, the liberalization of the market as well comes with innovation. That’s what you see that the market is changing. Yeah.

Antoine Walter:

So basically, you’re reversing the scale effect before you would have a myriad of players and one central government to CT, which is centralizing everything in which saying, Hey, I can leverage my scale to make something efficient. And what you’re saying is that they are probably not doing that thing efficient themselves. But if you are a company that does that scale thing, that you are the ones serving all of them, then you have that scale effect. And on top of that, you do that efficiently.

Jacob Bossaer:

Exactly.

BOSAQ’s technologies to produce drinking water

Antoine Walter:

Let’s go to the technical side of things. We’ve alluded a bit to it because that’s came from your, your Antarctica years. But what is your system? What is it all about?

Jacob Bossaer:

Yep. So our system is membrane based memories. There are around since seventies and since the two thousands are commercially viable, because before it was way too expensive was not robust. Technology is not reliable. Now it is very reliable. It’s technology is used. It’s almost a maintenance. It’s not mean, but it’s used a lot more than it’s ever been used. And for us, it’s at this stage, the best technology to provide a high quality drink or at all at all time, and just kind of membranes ultrafiltration gravitation nanofiltration versus Moses microfiltration as well as pre-treatment. But what we’ve done is first of all, we made a system that’s a hundred percent off-grid, which is quite unique. So we don’t need it just from the grid or from a generator to operate our systems. And we made a system that’s a hundred percent independent from human interaction, which is of course important because for example, Suriname is a country that is the kind of, we have the biggest contracts running.

Jacob Bossaer:

This is the middle of a jungle. And if it breaks down, you can’t send an engineer from Belgium up there. So you have to make sure that everything is built robust and is built also that you can do from a distance, which we do every installation worldwide, it’s connected to internet, even station. And we can see, so it is always there. Or it’s through cell phone network, which in most countries is available even in the middle of the jungle in Suriname. And if you don’t have it, you have satellites. This is how we make sure that at all time have control, because what happens a lot is with projects that are approved are installed. Insulation is installed. Companies left raise after two, three months, nobody knows about it and it doesn’t operate anymore. So also in the concept, what we do is three years of maintenance is included. If a government doesn’t want to, we don’t provide systems. So it’s obligatory.

Antoine Walter:

I have a strong take at the market and everything has, has its clear rules, it’s very interesting!

Jacob Bossaer:

The technology transfer is a part of that three years, because if you provide new technology to country and engineers are not trained in it, they cannot sustain it. So in these three years or engineers, train engineers in the country to make sure that they can operate the system without us very important. A second very important thing is our contracts as well. I’m not going to say they’re always going to work out, but that’s at least the aim we obliged governments to make people pay for water, which is not always obvious. As soon as people pay for water, the value of water is there. Again, we come back to the value. Is there people understand that’s the most amazing part. People are really willing to pay. There are really, even the poorest one are willing to pay for good quality drink workers. They don’t want their kids getting sick. 4.5 million people die worldwide per year because of drinking water issues. Most of them are kids. So they’re really willing to pay for that. And these two things already technology transfer and payment of system is a huge enabler of us for governments. It also helps governments who installed, why there’s a payback of their capital investment as well. And there’s a payback of operational costs as well. Like I said, it’s not technology we provide. It’s a concept that we provide.

How BOSAQ aims to reduce Total Cost of Ownership

Antoine Walter:

You have a strong claim in what you said, which is that your total cost of ownership is lower than any other solution. How do you measure that?

Jacob Bossaer:

The thing is we had also discussed today about decentralized systems. Decentralized systems are not very common yet as a structural solution to drinking water. So we compare ourselves obviously to the next best thing, which is centralized solution. Now, if you compare to centralized solution for remote areas, that’s a, no-brainer the cost of a piping is with the 150 and 350,000 euros per kilometer. And it’s quite independent from country because for example, the one that you have more more difficult access to heavy machinery. So it costs more. So that cost is real. So there the cost there is really, yeah, there’s no brainer. And then of course you have competition that works also in decentralized. But if you look at the price or price is quite expensive, but if you look at the total cost of ownership, being that our systems work, operate for 20, 30 years, and then you’re going to also calculate the maintenance of it, which is almost nothing. Then your total cost of ownership is super low and that’s what we aim at. So we want to be product leaders. So when we want to be the Porsche of the drinking water installations, but with the idea of making sure that maintenance is very low and the robustness of the system is very high and that’s where we, why we claim we have the lowest total cost of ownership in the market.

Antoine Walter:

Two thoughts here, my first thought is that goes a bit against the trends, which is to say let’s do water as a service. And actually it’s the same thought to twofold go together. If you were a pure capitalist, you would say, I have the lowest total cost of ownership. Let me finance the installation and let me bill everyone a service because I know that on the long run, I’m going to be very profitable.

Jacob Bossaer:

That’s also what we want to go to. But if you want to do that, if you do that, now you take government again, a way because

Antoine Walter:

Government, they have the capability to invest, but not really to pay. Yeah.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah, exactly. And that’s also because the what as a service model is something that we do. For example, a bottled water concept is what, as a service, they pay per liter of water. They don’t pay an installation installation hours, but that’s also because it’s completely different setup with governance, a lot more difficult. You know, there are three reasons why we sell to government. First of all, is the needs, but the need 95 countries worldwide need it. The second is network. Do you need to know the right people obviously also on a political level and that there was financing now in Western Europe, that’s not really an issue. Governments are financially powerful enough to pay that, but in a lot of developing countries, that’s not the case. And if you want to finance a project and you want to do two, what is the service? There is no insurance company is going to ensure that transaction, if you do it through a lump sum saying the project cost 5 million, 10 or 20 million, then they’re going to ensure that transaction.

Jacob Bossaer:

And for us as a startup company is only the only way to start up because we need that cash in to make sure that we can evolve to Water as a Service business, because the idea would be then that people pay directly to assist in the money, comes on our account and we be back the investment also pay for operational costs, but then you skip the government again. And that’s something I believe that’s dangerous, why I’m actually convinced about social capitalism. And what I mean by that is that the basic needs of humans should be public owned. Drink and water. Electricity. Telecom is also a basic need these days because yeah, connectivity is super important, but it should be privately run if you know what I mean, because probably run, you’ll get efficiency. You really look at the cost. You, you have a lot better. You have more flexibility on the employees market. You don’t have these people that are fixed in a job, but it should go back to the committee and that’s why we involve governments. It, so it’s an opinion basically, but I believe in that opinion, because in the long run, I think drinking water is so basic. It’s so elementary that it should be public owned.

How knowledge transfer and operation contracts ensure long-term success

Antoine Walter:

It’s interesting because with your model of this three years of operation, it’s almost like you’re doing, you know, before for these big projects, there’s a build, operate transfer. And a, and that’s usually is for really huge infrastructure project. And you’re taking the same concept just in a very small scale and say, Hey, you can do exactly the same. You build it, pay for it upfront. And then three years long, we train new people. And after it’s yours, use it for the next 30 years. Exactly.

Jacob Bossaer:

The thing is, there’s also a reason to that we focus as a company on project 5 million euros and plus. We do project between 1 million, five years, and we don’t want to do project less than one mate, unless they have a strategic importance. For example, we do two project now with the biggest drink water company of Belgium, they’re a small project, but of course with strategic point of view, very important because they have a big market that we can serve in a longer run. The same. Now in Suriname, we providing for a gold mining company for cause they have communities that the workers that work for the mine and they provide all the social needs, schooling electricity, drinking water. And that’s also small project where we do that. Obviously you get into that market because strategic strength, the concept of BOSAQ is a centralized approach on decentralized drinking water supply.

Jacob Bossaer:

If you go, like I said, the example with the Rwanda, the 10 villages, then different installation, that’s not efficient. But if you do as one company ten different villages, you have this advise approach, this interest in every village, but you can control centralized. You can centralize your maintenance, you can centralize your spare part management. Then the cost per unit goes drastically down. So it’s actually also for bigger projects. And if you were in government a project for 3 million euros for government is super small. Even for developing countries. The project we talk about are, are actually 8 million plus. Why? And that’s again, the financing part banks don’t want to find anything project less than 10 million euros because not, it’s not beneficial for them. Countries know that as well. It’s indeed small scale at the all hands it’s big scale, but it’s, we combined the two, basically for us, it doesn’t make any sense.

Jacob Bossaer:

If a country asks us, I want one village, one installation, then we say, no, we don’t do that because that’s not the impact that we envisioned. That’s not how the model is built or systems as well. And that’s a technical a thing: our systems are build modular. So every module in the container, in the, in the wherever it’s set up, it has its specific goal within the system. So we have a standard product with standard modules. But if you have, for example, mercury in the world, which is quite common in in in Suriname, then you put a module in that takes preferentially, mercury out of the water. And that’s an option. Solar, if you want solar energy, that’s an option. If you want hydro energy, that’s an option. So you pay for it. As you have to relate actually to the car manufacturing market, where you pay a standard car with options.

Jacob Bossaer:

That’s what exactly what we do as well. And we make it standardized. So that means that we don’t have to re-engineer our product for every different situation, because we just put a model in or out. But if you look at the production capacity, then now it’s very expensive to develop. But from a point of production, it’s a lot cheaper because you can read the big series. So it was the same and you just built them out. And their both modular from a hardware point of view, but also from a software point of view. And all these modes are connected with intermediate blocks, software blocks that connects everything. And that’s of course more expensive now, but on a long run, a lot cheaper. And that’s we want to go, we pay now between five 50 cents and one, 1.5 Euro per cubic meter. We want to go to 30 cents per cubic meter and is definitely reachable with the concept that we’re developing. So it’s built for being big.

How every water project is the same, except that it is totally different!

Antoine Walter:

It’s amazing because you know, if you talk to water professionals, they usually tell you every project is the same, except that it’s totally different. And I think every single company out there in the market has tried to standardize. And I would say that almost all of them, I would have told you all of them failed, but apparently you’re an example, which makes me no than say almost all of them, but that’s always been the ambition to say, there’s things you can standardize. But at the end of the day, the water is different at every single place in the world. Exactly. So how can you standardize that?

Jacob Bossaer:

But you can, because it looks like you have the same product, but it’s actually not because the different models in it, but the modes are standardized. Okay. So you just, it’s like a building blocks. You make building blocks and you make, let’s say didn’t building blocks, but within building. But if you only need five, you have the millimeters, you really can make a huge variation of final products basically.

How Jacob Bossaer wants BOSAQ to standardize its elemental bricks

Antoine Walter:

So you standardize the Lego bricks, which you can build whatever you want. Makes a lot of sense. You mentioned that you can work off grid without energy. What is powering you? Is it solar power?

Jacob Bossaer:

Yes. So we provide ourselves solar power and we have partners for wind and hydro. But all systems can be also put on the grid because in some committee, for example, Romania, all communities have electricity. They don’t have water, drinking water. It’s also more sustainable. It’s already there. Then you don’t have to put solar panels because then you invest twice for exactly the same output. We’re not a big fan of that. If it’s not necessary to where we want to have more sustainable renewable energies. But of course it’s also the client at the sides and every system can also be put on a generator, for example, for remote areas where you have sometimes a energy breakdown, they say are, we don’t need the solar panels because we have energy. You have an energy breakdown. They can’t put a generator on it, but that’s again an option, something we don’t promote, but it’s an option. So you have the,

Antoine Walter:

But if you run on solar panels and if someone wants to shower at night, how does that work?

Jacob Bossaer:

It’s a battery system is so you have, you have backups. So the system is is always built with backup. And also it’s not purification at the moment. So there’s always a buffer capacity. And that’s also, that’s an engineering calculation, how much you have to provide for a certain community. So that’s always there. And the water is always, re-disinfected also also there we make sure that’s more sustainable because normally ultraviolet lights is a good way of disinfecting, but the mercury lamps, you already hear it. Mercury lamps, not sustainable, heavy metal. You don’t want that. So we use LED UV is brand new technology. It’s more expensive, it’s a lot more sustainable. It’s also more robust, also ideal for our applications. So also there in new products, new things that we find on the market we implement in our systems.

How to Build to Last

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned that you have the absolute certainty, that your products will last 30 years yet you don’t have yet those through to use as both sides. So how can you be so convinced that it’s going to last?

Jacob Bossaer:

Ha I think it’s experienced. You’re not never certain if I’m dead, honest certainty. Exactly. But it’s built in that way. And of course it’s a lot of experience in the market. What lasts long or it doesn’t, this is the reason, for example, why do we work with GF Piping Systems? Because we know it’s quality products. We do not put Chinese 20% of the GF Piping System price products in our systems because you know, it’s going to fail after, after one or two years, maybe even earlier. So we make sure that the products that we build in are high quality, where there’s a lot of experience with it or for long period of time that we know, okay, this price is going to last for a long time. And also the system is also built to make sure that if, for example, a pump fails, it’s very easy to build that in and out.

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Jacob Bossaer:

So it’s very flexible in that sense. So can you claim that? No, of course we have to sell and it’s, it’s a marketing thing. We are the best in the market. We use the best products to make sure that the installation is robust and lasts for a long time, because I can’t find the same installation. No, not the same, but they say does the same, same, let’s say 5,000 liters per hour of drinking water in China at 20% of the price. But I’m a hundred percent sure that that will fail way long before ours will fail. That’s a hundred percent certainty. So you see in the mind it’s a frustration from the market as well. It’s a big frustration as well. You hear that a lot. Oh yeah. There was just a few months and it’s done. It doesn’t work anymore. Yeah. We can’t have that also with the name of the company. We don’t want to have that obviously.

Antoine Walter:

So you’re back to this total cost of ownership aspects that’s yeah. Yeah. Usually are you can’t afford to be cheap. I mean, that’s, that’s, you’re just saying last question for me in this deep dive, you, you mentioned this this element of the digital side of things that thanks to the phone network. You’re able to look at everything from remotely, but what do you exactly look at? What is, what is it that you’re monitoring? What are you key indicators

Jacob Bossaer:

Quality flow temperature, humidity,

Antoine Walter:

Quality, meaning?

Jacob Bossaer:

Everything! Like we have developed also, it’s also be patented it’s it’s a quality sensor in line, which is a lot cheaper than what you have available on the market. And for example, our systems are intelligent. They know, for example, when the river has more organic content, the installation will run at a lower pace to not burn the, the, the membranes and necessarily, and also the information that we take is locked and the idea is not. So we are now in a process of hiring a software engineer will develop AI, to make sure that the information that we get in from the logging system can help us in optimizing our design to circumstance. For example, if it’s very humid, then we can see that a pump. It has needs maintenance after one year and very dry, only two years. For example, it’s just an idea.

Jacob Bossaer:

I don’t know if that’s the case, but that’s just an idea. So you can optimize your design, but you also can predict your maintenance. And it’s also a huge cost saver predictive maintenance, also it’s IOT connected. So you need that data to read in, and that’s the reason why we have so much data. So also data that you, from a first point of view, why would you need that? Why would you need your humidity in the country that you’re operating at? Well for that design optimizations corrosion. For example, if you see temperature, which with humidity has a lot faster corrosion on this element, okay, we’re going to change that to plastic or, or, or, or Inox, whatever or, or any material that’s better for that circumstances so we can optimize our design. So that’s a bit the idea.

How Machine Learning might be a next evolution for BOSAQ

Antoine Walter:

I don’t want to throw buzzwords at you, but that sounds to me like an ideal field too good for machine learning. If you see that pattern, then probably this is going to happen.

Jacob Bossaer:

Exactly. Actually, I think that’s also the Case. I think there’s so much technology available. Use it. Why wouldn’t we use it? It’s I also believe I’m a hardware guy. I believe in the, the huge need of hardware provide drinking water, but I’m not an aviator. The thing is software is a main drive for any company. If you want to be on top, if you want to be on top of your game all the time, you need to know what you’re doing and how do you need to know what you’re doing is data mining in your own systems. And that’s, it’s a necessity. It’s not even nice to have. It’s a necessity for us to make sure we are on top of our game for the coming years. And we can keep innovating the system that we have, because like I said, it’s not a Fitbit that we work with memory in technology, maby in 5 years, we do complete different technology because we believe that’s not technology is better, more energy efficient less burn on the, on the environment, whatever. So I think, and you have to evolve and you also have to dare to evolve with that. And then you need data. We’re an engineering company. We just can’t say, Oh, we think it’s going to be better. No, no. You have to know it’s going to be better. Yes or no. So it’s trend that we also follow as a company. I think it’s necessary. It’s yeah. As things are moving very fast. So why not use it?

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Antoine Walter:

Yeah. You mentioned this element of the membranes that still a recent technology in terms of acceptance. I had Graeme Pearce on that microphone who explained us how, when he was traveling around the UK, in the nineties and early two thousands, people were laughing at him and saying in membranes, I’m never going to be a thing. And look at us 20 years later. I mean, it’s just everywhere. So yeah, you never know what’s going to be the technology of the future. I’m sorry. I said it was the last question and I keep throwing questions at you, but I have, I promise you this time. It’s the last one. It’s about, you know, the acceptance of the market. There is something, there is a common pattern within the water market. There’s always this. Okay. It might be good. It might even be 20% better than what we already know, but what we know, we know it and it’s been working that way for 30 years. So why shall we change? Is your chance here that you are addressing a market where there’s nothing, so you’re making better than nothing in any case?

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah, partially I think I think the biggest chance is the developed world because they’re, the process are already a lot more installed and, you know, in Suriname, they don’t have water in decentralized areas. So any solution is good, basically. So it’s a lot easier to get that to them. But for example, we work in Belgium on the hybrid system, meaning centralized, combined, decentralized to have a hundred percent coverage of drinking water within Belgium. That’s our process, very political. They have the Holy house. They don’t want to kick in. So, but that’s, you know, if you think being an entrepreneur is easy, then everybody would do it. It’s part of the game. It takes a long time, especially with governments, it takes a long time and it’s, it’s a fight. It’s a fight that, and you keep on fight. I think the main characters of any good entrepreneur is perseverance.

Jacob Bossaer:

Never give up. Yeah. I heard a quote a few weeks ago and I thought it was a brilliant quote, is winners or losers never give up? I like that quote. It’s a very good one because it’s what it is. Like I said, we were almost three bankrupt. We’re still floating. And maybe next year we’re bankrupt, you know, you don’t know, but my mindset I’m going to make this work and I’ll make sure that we’ll have that impact and we go for it and we keep going for it. And even at the last thing of hope that we could have, I’m going to grab it and we’ve got to go for it. And that’s what I think entrepreneuring is about. There’s a bit of a healthy, healthy mind obviously, but perseverance, I never stopped.

Antoine Walter:

If you want to listen to a cool episode about entrepreneurship in the water words, it’s also a Belgian company as well, Wim Audenaert was my guest here from AM Team. It was very inspiring. You have a clear path which is to become a unicorn. When is that going to happen? Just to know when I scheduled the followup with you

Jacob Bossaer:

15 years. Yeah. So five years we’re going to grow massively and then it gives it it’s it’s processed. So now we, a project company will want to evolve to product company and they want to evolve to what is a service company. Like I said, difficulties for going to what a service company immediately is. First of all, cash as small companies, a lot more, if you want to raise 50 million, which you would need for Water as a service company, big scale, then we can’t raise that right now. But also it’s also more logical to make sure that we now focus on the technology, meaning building the building blocks. So it’s a product company. So if a country says, we want this, okay, this is on the shelf. This is what we need for this kind of project. But the project is productized. So the project actually products. And then we got to Water as a service. So that was going to take us some time. So the first five years now is product company and then one is a service company. So that’s the Idea. And in 15 years I want to be there. And I want to sit here and tell you that we are the biggest worldwide than decentralized doing drinking water supply. So fingers crossed a love, heart work. We know that. I also know it’s dangerous to talk about these ambitions, but I don’t want to,

Antoine Walter:

It’s refreshing to be honest, it’s really refreshing to hear that.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah, but I, I think I also need that. I need that goal to set for myself to make sure that we follow up on those. And, you know, I rather die, trying and failing that never tried. So that’s for me a yeah, part of my personality, I guess,

Antoine Walter:

Let me throw a closing thought that you, before we switch for the rapid fire question, because I said it was the last one, and this is my third last one. But when you see a company like clubhouse, which is raising $4 billion with I mean an audio social media, which is not even one year old, and you say on the other end, you you’re solving an issue, which is a life issue for billions of people. And you say, it’s going to be impossible to raise 50 millions.

Jacob Bossaer:

It’s not impossible, but very challenging at this stage. And we don’t want to put the effort in it at this stage also because a, the downstream maturity should be a little bit higher. If we do that, is it a frustration? And it’s not a frustration I’m afraid about that, but I just don’t from healthy might not understand it because you can’t live with our Facebook. You cannot live without water, but still the value the company

Antoine Walter:

You cannot live without wifi, come on!

Jacob Bossaer:

It’s just perception that we are willing to pay 500 years for a cell phone. We not willing to pay five years a year for water. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s just the way it is. And let’s hope that we can raise awareness about the value of water in the coming years, more than it’s now, but it will never be like a cool iPhone or whatever. And so, yeah, but the thing is, is what, like the bottle of water we sell, we sell that in a half a euro a liter and what we sell to governments a half a year or per cubic meter. So that’s a thousand times more. And just the perception because the bottle looks very cool. It’s a very nice concept. It’s a marketing product and people are willing to pay

Antoine Walter:

That don’t get me started, you know, I’m a son of what our engineers that have been raised into this belief that tap water is the best thing there is there wasn’t, it will ever be. And when I was student in Mulhouse, we had the tap water who had kind of a taste and people wouldn’t drink the tap water. So the city of mirrors, what they did is they tried to explain to the people that the taste was because there was this a terror attack and you had to put chlorine into the water. And that was the reason for the taste, but people kept, they didn’t want to drink that. So the city took the exact same water, bottled it and sold it, and people bought those bottles. And that, that tells you just sometimes how we can be stupid. But, but yeah, as I said, don’t get me started. And it’s my third closing. I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

So in this last section, I try to keep the question short and you can try to keep the answers short, but I’m not cutting the microphone. If you have something more to say, fair enough. My first question is what is the most exciting project you’ve been working on and why

Jacob Bossaer:

Antarctica, absolutely. Because you come back to yourself, very rudimentary. If you talk about log down, I can assure you Antartica is a full lock down. Now there’s nothing there. But it’s, it was the inspiration of my professional career, the started Bosak. So yeah, that’s for me, absolutely. The project that inspired me to,

Antoine Walter:

What is your favorite part of your current job?

Jacob Bossaer:

Travelling. Well actually quite a lot, because the good thing about what has its necessity. So it’s also considered as a necessary business, so I could travel quite a lot, but I love being content with different culture. I love being in with different backgrounds. I love being called with different technologies, with different people. I love that. And that’s the, I think the best part of my job.

Antoine Walter:

What is the trends to watch out for in the water industry? Don’t tell me decentralized treatments?

Jacob Bossaer:

No, I think since I started with BOSAQ, I think also at that same time no, because of both suck a wish, but not the water sector is changing for the good, and I think it’s going a little bit further away from government from a technological point of view, in sense, innovation in water is so much innovation is still possible. The low hanging fruits are still there. So I really believe that the trend is that water is going to be hot. It’s going to be sexy. It’s going to be a product that I believe is going to be also a very important one. Also in the, in the [inaudible] like all was still, Elizabeth will go down. I think what it will go up and they’re referred to as the blue gold the new oil, whatever. And I, yeah, think that water is going to have a more public, it will be more publicly debated and it will be a very grateful market work working, I think, for the future. Yeah.

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Antoine Walter:

I had a great discussion with Nicola Lei Ravello on that microphone about what a future is being traded in Wall Street now. And it has its pros and cons, but it certainly shows that the interest in what I am, what is the thing you care the most about when you’re working on a new project and what’s the one you care, the least

Jacob Bossaer:

What I care most about is the impact drivenness it sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s really important for me. I want that push. We do have a real impact. What I care less. It’s a difficult one. That’s always the most difficult one.

Antoine Walter:

I can award you a Joker card if you wish.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah. I’m going to take a joker for that.

Antoine Walter:

Okay. Joker card. Do you have sources to recommend to keep up with the latest market news?

Jacob Bossaer:

No. one of the worst things about me is I don’t read a lot. I read a lot of politics cause it’s necessary for my job. But I don’t read a lot of books. I don’t read a lot of topics I do read, but it’s very random. Linkedin. there’s lot of things that I follow, but I don’t read it even my own articles. Cause I have articles that I write in my name. I don’t get the reading all of them. So I’m not a good source for getting the reading the article,

Antoine Walter:

But so your best source is people because you want to meet people.

Jacob Bossaer:

Yeah. That’s true. Absolutely. Yeah. The best source is people, that’s true. That’s true because the thing is as well. Yeah, I’ll say to my engineers as well, engineers are a breed. I’m an engineer myself. So back for myself. So I can’t say that there are a breed that wants to reach perfection, but the market doesn’t demand perfection, the market demands a product that’s that works and then you can optimize it. So yeah, people are the best way of making sure that your product isn’t optimized profit or market. Yeah, absolutely.

Antoine Walter:

Last question. Would you have someone to recommend me that I should definitely invite on that same microphone

Jacob Bossaer:

In water? Yeah. Pieter Loose, obviously I think from the initial point of view, he’s doing great work. I think as well in Belgium, especially we have to be grateful for what he’s doing because it makes also what a big topic in Belgium. And it makes us more important than we’ve ever been before. We’re not competitors, not yet at least, but we are adding to each other. And I think yeah, he’s, he’s a great if you look, if you see what you’ve done in 10 years, it’s amazing. So a big respect to him and a big congrats. He also went just to the stock market, his company, so amazing. You have some other companies like [inaudible], which is focused on very  challenging waste water from  the pharmaceutical industry  has also quite some success now in Belgium. And then you also have George break he’s from  hydro Volta. Hydro Volta is a company they want actually a great grant by EIC, from European union for desalination. So new technology with the Italian issue, it’s a lot more energy efficient than memory technology. It’s electric dialysis system kind of thing. He has a great story because he comes from Syria. He had the flat, the war  start up again in Belgium, lost everything and has a great company is also a really growing fast startup, also going to scale up. So also very inspiring guy to talk to him.

Antoine Walter:

Awesome. Well, Jacob, it was a pleasure. I could have taken another hour of your time, but I have to be cautious of your time at some point. So thanks so much for your time and yeah. Talk to you when you hit the next big milestone. Yeah. Let’s hope. Thanks a lot for that.

Other Episodes:

FREDsense: Revolutionizing Water Quality Monitoring with Biosensor Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 7 May 2025

Swirltex: Revolutionizing Wastewater Treatment with Bubbly Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 30 April 2025

Blue Foot Membranes: The Next Evolution in Water Filtration

By Antoine Walter | 16 April 2025

Echo River Capital: Pioneering the Future of Water Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 3 April 2025

1001 Fontaines: Engineering Sustainable Water Access Through Social Entrepreneurship

By Antoine Walter | 22 March 2025

Amazon’s Water Footprint: Tech Giant’s Quest for Water Sustainability

By Antoine Walter | 19 March 2025

Turing: The AI Revolution Quenching the Water Industry’s Thirst for Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 26 February 2025

Altillion: Pioneering Digital Intelligence for Water Asset Management

By Antoine Walter | 6 February 2025

Flocean: Pioneering Ocean-Based Water Solutions

By Antoine Walter | 15 January 2025

Botanical Water Technologies: Harvesting Liquid Gold from Plants

By Antoine Walter | 4 December 2024

The post How to Save No Less than 2.2 Billion Lives (aka Frozen 3) appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

 BioCastle is an environmental biotechnology company that encapsulates nature by developing and marketing an intriguing technology: the Small Bioreactor Platform.

What we covered:

How BioCastle develops the smallest bio-reactor in the world

How its simplicity makes it a perfect fit for multiple wastewater treatment applications

How this full story starts with an almost midlife crisis for Ofir and pressing fish farming challenges for Gabi

How Gabi and Ofir might be considered bacteria breeders

The hurdles of starting commercial expansion in the middle of a Pandemic

How shelving bacteria opens a whole new world of targeted actions

How the adoption curve can be challenging for a young water treatment company

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Infographic: Microbial Encapsulation

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Gabi on LinkedIn

Then you can do the same with Ofir as well!

Have a look at BioCastle’s website

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi Gabi, Hi, Ofir. Welcome to the show. Well, it’s not every day that have the chance to speak with two guests. So we have two guests today for the price of one. So wonderful. Let me start with that with a postcard. And actually of course, with two postcards and the first postcard comes from Beers Sheva and that’s you, Ofir? What can you tell us about your place?

Ofir Menashe:

Beer Sheva is in the south west of Israel in the negative way. This is a desert area. It’s a nice place. My parents live here, so I visited them right now.

Antoine Walter:

So I guess in a desert place, you probably have water stories. We were going to dig a bit deeper into that in a second, but you Gabi, you are in Modein.

Gabi Wolkinson:

Yeah, a lot of history here, a lot of the ancient digs we’re smack in the middle between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It’s a fairly new city, 20 years, maybe

Antoine Walter:

When it was preparing for the discussion, I was looking at both of your path. And I was wondering what brought you together? What made you cross your lines? And you gave me a little glimpse into that Gabi some seconds ago and that has to do with, with fishes. So what’s the story.

Gabi Wolkinson:

It’s a wonderful story. Actually, for the past 10 years we’ve been working, I’ve been working in the fish industry, trying to initiate and initiating actually different types of recycling, agriculture assistance, fish, pharmacy recycling the water. And we built one of the biggest fisheries in the world. Actually today we’re growing a barren Lindy. It’s about 20 minutes South of where our field is located at the moment. And through trying to initiate fish farms or RAs systems in the world, I came to the conclusion that we need to find a technology that would be fit for a recycling, the water and fish system, but fit for smaller growers, traditional growers. Because today, if we look at RAs at that industry, then we see that all the systems are very big because in order to be profitable, in order to make an efficient system, you need to grow large amounts of fish and all the traditional growers that used to grow fish in their backyard stopped growing their fish because of all kinds of sustainable issues or economical issues.

Gabi Wolkinson:

And that’s when we found a fuse technology, the SBP capsules, which we’ll talk a lot more soon. But what we did was we took the technology and we built a small fish farm inside a caravan. And we actually drew Sebring. It’s a seawater fish from a very small fingerling, about a half a gram all the way to 500 grams. And it was very, very good. I mean, the chef that we brought it to really liked it and it was a good process. So we learned a lot out of that. And to today, we are taking that forward

The roots of microbial encapsulation

Antoine Walter:

Now in a separate company. So it starts with a good process and a good fish. And in that story Ofir you’re the technical guy. So you came with that SBP, which is the small bioreactor platform. And we’re going to dig a bit deeper into that in a second, but how did you get interested in that technical aspect of things?

Ofir Menashe:

Oh, well this is a different story. First of all, I remember the meeting with Gabi. It was three years ago, this meeting I’m really remembering it. We sit in a Televiv in Israeli towers and we will talk about the technology. And then Gabi  tell me that if he thinks that the technology might solve a major problems in a recirculating aquaculture systems. And from that point, we were going together. And so this is the story about me and Gabi and about the technology. It’s I think it’s all started when I was at age 34 and decided to do my PhD studies, just changing, you know, changing the way in the middle of life. You want to do something else. I want to change to do something like entrepreneurship, to invent something that will be useful. So I left everything in my life and started to learn in the university to conduct a PhD studies at the faculty of biotechnology engineering at the Technion, the Israel Institute of technology.

Ofir Menashe:

And I was feeling very hold because all around me was a young people. And I was the older one or the older guy I finished at age 38, about 2009. And in Israel, there was a significant crisis in water. We still did not have desalination process. And we have a lots, a sequence of draughts. And once I say that, I want to cooperate with the water industry. And I’m a microbiologist it’s immediately taken me into the road direction of water and wastewater treatment. So I started to check out this work, water, working out this technology, working, and I look at the literature and I found that everything is well known. You have a lot of bacteria and know how to degrade it, everything, almost every contaminant that we know, even absorbing radioactive elements. And this is really was depressing because I said to me, okay, what I can contribute to the world at this at this point.

Ofir Menashe:

And I asked my friend, which is a water engineering. And I tell him, tell me about what you, you are seeing in the water industry. Does it it’s really significant as the academic literature is describing this world that we have all the solution, everything is good. And he said far away the academic is just provided some data, but you can not implement it into the industrial world. Now, at this point, I understood that we have a technology gap between academic and the industrial sector. And at that point, I understood that if I will find a technology that will bridging this gap, perhaps I have I have a place in this world of intrepreneur option. And I dig in more about, okay, what happened, why, why it’s not working. And he told me that once you are, there is a wonderful bacteria that know to join everything. But once you are putting inside the wastewater treatment plant, it’s vanished, it’s diluted, it’s eaten by other microorganism. It’s not adopted and it’s vanished. It’s not working. So in a Petri dish, it’s my work. But once you take it to a big, huge water body, it’s vanish, you don’t have the capability to use it. This is the starting point that I figure, what is the problem here?

Antoine Walter:

If anyone wants to feel like, you know, empathy towards a factory, you can go to bio castles. So your company’s website and I found this video of that poor bacteria, which is, which is just perfect for just doing its work. And then there’s just this devil predator who comes and eats that bacteria. And I’m like, no, no, please don’t kill the bacteria. I never thought I was going to feel something for a bacteria. And then I saw that video, the story, I didn’t want to cut you off, but, but then it was something I wanted,

Ofir Menashe:

As you’re saying, because I feel the same. And I said, okay, let’s try to figure the bacteria like a man. If you want to employ someone, you need to provide in some security, you need to provide him some condition that he will be able to work properly. And we don’t provide it. Now, the second thing after I figured that I understood that I need to invent something that will protect, will provide a castle to protect those bacteria that I want to use. Now, this is, was the invention. It was not simple because at that time I was thinking about only out to wrap it with a microfiltration member. Well, microphone, titration member is a physical separation. It’s kind of with a holes, little holes that is smaller than the bacteria itself. So it’s not allowed in the bacteria to transfers, but it’s allowing other components, which is smaller than the bacteria to get out and in. Okay. And in that time, there was only a membrane. That’s like a paper, like a paper sheet, and I need something structural. So this is what was the invention itself to create something spherical as structural and the bacteria will be inside.

Microbial Encapsulation as a way to reverse engineer larger scale treatments

Antoine Walter:

It’s very interesting because you, you reversed engineered microfiltration or ultrafiltration because usually you have that separation step, which has managed to take out the bacteria of the water and to clean the water. And you said, no, wait, I don’t want to take the bacteria out of the water. I want to protect the batch, the bacteria. And by the way, nobody gets your name by your castle because you’re building a castle for the bacteria and you protect the bacteria. I mean the good bacteria from the bad bacteria so that they can do their work while water is still flowing through your castle, which is here at Maura, a capsule.

Ofir Menashe:

Absolutely you’re right. We are protecting the bacteria, but not a usual bacteria, not the natural bacteria that is growing inside the wastewater treatment plant, but in bacteria that especially bacteria that we are using, which can be not growing inside the wastewater treatment plant, but this bacteria have the capability to degraded contaminant, industrial contaminants, such as phenols, such as the fat and oils, such as a benzene and other components, which the bacteria inside the waste water children then are not able to do that. And the idea is to have a sufficient biomass in order to conduct this process, to conduct this treating process. Now, if I returning back to my story, I created a castle around the bacteria and I said, wait, I have a castle. Now I can bring some furniture inside. I can bring some nutrients I can bring out of things that may accelerate all the process and make the home better for the bacteria. And that point I understood that I built the smallest bio-reactor in the world. Actually, it’s like a, took a wastewater treatment plant and shrink it into one capsule about 2.5 centimeter long. This was the idea.

Antoine Walter:

So basically it sounds to me a bit like a moving bed bioreactor on MBR, but just the other way round. So it’s not a cheap where you grow the biofilm on the chip. It’s a chip where you grow the biofilm within the changing and that way you have a controlled environment.

Ofir Menashe:

Absolutely. You’re right. However, when you are using a biofilm on the field with the MBB out, you don’t have the control. What, which type of bacteria you have there here, we have the control, which type of bacteria we can introduce inside the capsule. We’re not, not only have the control of which type of the bacteria. We have the control of the bacteria, concentration, how much bacteria I’m putting inside the wastewater treatment plants. It’s according to how many capsule we put in, and also the position because they are very big particle. 2.5 is a big particle. And we put it inside the perforated cages. We also have the capability to control the position of the implementation of the biomass. This make us enable to create a new treatment process. And this is the innovation actually, especially for the industry for the industry itself. Now, if I may, I will explain what I mean, for instance, if an industrial client want to induce a biological treatment, what are you doing today?

Ofir Menashe:

You need to grow in a biomass. You need to separate it that way. With the sedimentation tank, you need to circulate it back to the bioreactor and you need to deal with the waste. Large. Actually you need a wastewater treatment plant. Isn’t it. With our technology, the SBP technology need only one chamber the bioreactor because the biomass already separated from the affluence. So you don’t need to send the mentation tank. You don’t have as a waste large because all our biomass is uploaded inside. So actually you need only one chamber and you don’t need to operate because the capsule lifespan is a two months. You only need to add a new amount of capsule. So this is a huge progress for the industrial sector, the water industrial sector.

Turning a CAPEX topic into OPEX with help of microbial encapsulation

Antoine Walter:

There’s many things to uncover in what you just said. Let’s start with the ends. Actually. You say that you’re turning basically a CapEx topic, which is I have to have a sedimentation step. I need to have a lot of things in, in my plan, the recirculation, I mean, everything you just listed. And you’re turning that into an OPEX question, which is every two months, my capsules are done. My bacteria have eaten everything they can eat. I need to replace them. But probably that means that you also have a balance to find between because in some cases, if the water is very easy to treat, probably your highly targeted capsules might be an overkill. I’m trying to find the pitfall here to be a bit of the devil’s advocate,

Gabi Wolkinson:

You’re forgetting though that if you do have all the steps and you don’t use the bio castle solution, then you anyway have your operational expenses. So you have to deal with your waste sludge and you have the electricity and you have your professional experts that need to deal with it. Whereas we are lowering those operational costs, even with the capsules, because you don’t have a need for the manpower that you need in a bigger system. The amount of oxygen that you’re going to have to push into the chambers is going to be less the space that you’re going to save and on and on.

Antoine Walter:

That’s a very interesting point. So sorry to cut you the manpower, because that, that was something that really impressed me in your various literature in marketing support, but also in what you just said is that it sounds very easy. So I need probably less knowledgeable manpower. Exactly. Is that right?

Gabi Wolkinson:

That’s exactly right. You don’t have to run the facility on a daily basis. You don’t have to have the people running the facility. It runs by itself. You have to come in and make the water checks like anyone has to do in any system. But besides that periodically, you’re adding in capsules. That’s all you’re doing nothing more, no trucks coming in and out to take the sludge away. No, no, no crazy infrastructure that you have to deal with and maintain.

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Antoine Walter:

Now, I’m going to keep my because you know, I’m a bit too enthusiastic about your solutions. So I have to be really the devil’s advocate here. I would see probably a scale effect because on lower size infrastructure, your solution sounds like, like really genius. You don’t need to have the skilled people around the plan to just pour in that at the right encapsulated bacteria, into, into your wastewater. And just every two months you renew them. But on a bigger scale, of course, you’re always going to have scavengers and bad bacteria that eat the good bacteria, but you also have the good bacteria that reproduce themselves in a huge tank. So you don’t, you have less investment into into that biomass. So I could see probably a limit and upper limits where both curves cross is that fair?

Ofir Menashe:

You’re right. You’re right. There is some limit. However, when you’re talking about large infrastructure, what we can do is improve the work, the capability to degraded. For instance, if your wastewater treatment plants F a limit capability of a daily organic matter that running inside, we can increase it up to by 20%. So we can work as an additive treatment, not stand along. As we described before, now, we can work as an additive treatment and increase the treatment field, meaning that you can extract much more from your infrastructure with our technology.

Nature is well done. Can we encapsulate it?

Antoine Walter:

I’d like to come back to something you said earlier, which was that nature is, is well done. And that there’s a bacteria to treat any kind of pollutants. Does that mean that you, you act like a chef, you look at what’s the problem, and then you find the exact good receipt of bacteria and they put the right bacteria in that water.

Ofir Menashe:

Yeah. You can see that like that. There’s we can see it almost like a pharmaceuticals that you have a lots of blends of materials that you can see what the problem is. And we can choose which type of bacteria to introduce. Sometimes we are using several types of bacterial, several types of capsules to put inside, think about that each capsule types or bacteria types, providing us independent biodegradable process, one process. And we can develop a lot of parallel processes, treatment processes. So we have unlimited power now. And

Antoine Walter:

Do your bacteria react to sudden changes in the effluent? If there is something which they are not designed for, how did you do the deal with that?

Ofir Menashe:

Well, this is a very good question, because we thought about it at the beginning and the design of the capsule and the capsule that sometimes the bacteria inside, they have several components. Do you remember that we are also providing the furniture for instance inside. So some of the bacteria inside, they have a place to develop a biofilm inside. So if the environment is still all style and you have antibacterial agent inside the water and they might reduce the bacteria inside the capsule, so you will have inoculated, you can inoculate it again, the capsule with the biofilm. And we have another component, which not all the time, I reveal that, reduce the toxicity of the environment and increases the compatibility of the environment to the bacteria itself. So it’s well, equipment castle is your castle reusable. No, it’s comes in a dry States where the bacteria is dormant when it’s not active. Once you put it in the water, all the particles become alive. So once you put it in the water, you cannot transplant it back into a dry state to inactive States. So at that point you have about two months of, by a small bioreactor to use.

Breeding Bacteria

Antoine Walter:

Does that make you people that treat water or does that make you people that, that breed bacteria

Ofir Menashe:

That’s that’s nice. I, what you want to answer that?

Gabi Wolkinson:

I think it’s both, there was no way to go around it. I think that even though in an MBR, a sludge treatment, you’re breeding bacteria. It’s the same thing. What’s beautiful in my eyes, as someone who’s not from the industry is to see how nature works. In any case. All of a sudden it occurred to me that the bacteria itself is already in the water with our help or without our help. Now, the question is how much we breed it. Like you say, in order to create more and more in order for it to treat the water problem is that we have no control. And with the SBP capsules we gain control. And once we gain control, we can minimize the amount of bacteria we need in the water. And you see minimize the amount of bacteria. Then you’re saving a lot. You’re saving manpower, you’re saving electricity, you’re saving on expenses. You’re saving on space. You’re saving on everything.

Ofir Menashe:

Actually. Now we can bioengineering the aquatic environment in the main of microbiology and the engineering process itself.

Antoine Walter:

I also something which, which is interesting, because you mentioned that the literature says that everything is done about bacteria and still you have some experimental bacteria. So I was wondering if maybe new compounds means new, new treatment that you need to put in phase of those new compounds. How do you develop those first? You develop new new bacteria. I mean, probably that’s out of the blue. You said like the right ones, but how important is it to, to keep adapting your bacteria to new types of pollutions?

Ofir Menashe:

Well, we’re talking about mainly in industrial pollutions that most of them, some of the bacteria are not familiar, especially those that you are using in sanitary, wastewater treatment plant in domestic one, they don’t have the time to biodegrade the bacteria itself, or do they still don’t know the contaminate itself in order to break it down? What we are using, we are using an isolate bacteria from these industrial zones. That’s also already been exposed to the contaminate of today or to the compound that we want to break it down. So they have all the mechanisms how to break it down and, and those bacteria we are putting inside the capsule itself.

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Microbial Encapsulation – Simple yet Powerful?

Antoine Walter:

So I think it’s, it’s very clear to me how that works on the technical side. I mean, it’s very clear because it sounds also very simple, which is of course, a strong benefit of your solution. Let’s talk a bit about business. Let’s say I’m, I’m your ideal customer. So first tell me who, who am I, who is your ideal customer? What is the sweet spot for your technology?

Ofir Menashe:

I think we should start by understanding that we treat biological contaminants. We treat organic matter in the water. So until we reached the stage of needing to treat lowering bod, that’s where we are. So we would be looking at if we’re talking about sanitary. So obviously most of the treatment in the sanitary or utilities it’s called would be biological. And we can, we have a lot of added value to those customers. Whether it be upgrading, scaling up their capacity or helping them reach a solutions for specific contaminants, getting better better results in their treatment, sharpening their treatment. The other type of a customer would be the industrial who has to treat water biologically. And you’re talking about food and beverage micro electronics that use a lot of water. And most of the industry even turns out most of the industry uses water.

Antoine Walter:

What is your ratio between new plans and upgrading existing plans?

Ofir Menashe:

I think that at the we’re talking

Gabi Wolkinson:

About two types of customers that are turning to us, one type has a existing plants, but needs to upgrade what they have. So they’ll treat their water to two, they get to a certain rate and then they don’t know what to do with it. It’s just too much for them for what they have. So they’re left with these big bodies of water that they can’t really discharge and they’re waiting for it to evaporate or for the contaminants to kind of dissolve by themselves, get out of the water by itself. The other type is I would call there would be industrialists that have solutions that they’re not happy with and need to do something and look a little differently at what they have. And I think that what’s driving things forward are regulations. All of a sudden the States are coming after the industrialists and saying, this is not good enough anymore. We need to, uh, get better results in your wastewater. And they’re left with the question, okay, what do I do now? And our solution is very good for them because it means that they don’t have to go into these crazy investments, building a big facilities. We fiddle around a little bit with what they have and create like a few set before a new processes for them in order for them to read their their needs.

Automating Plant Operation

Antoine Walter:

We’ve seen that those new processes might be easier and that’s a way to facilitate the operation of the plant. But how does that relate to automation? Because I guess it’s a cool thing if it’s easier, but if it’s automated, I guess it’s the next step. How do you to make your plant? Is it like two months sharp? That’s a capsule can last in water or does that have something to do with, with the loads coming into the wastewater straightened step to have any means to measure how much the capsule could still be treating in the future? I’ll do two major plans.

Ofir Menashe:

Yeah. That’s very, very interesting question because we need to experience in order lots of projects to know exactly how much time the capsule will survive in the water, because you have a sheer force you’re with other forces that working against the capsules and you have all the acidity in the water level acidity and other chemical elements. According our experience the capsules are stay about two months in the water working good. We don’t see any physical damage to the capsule. This is very easy because you see them cracked or breaking down. And this is our day. They finish their lifespan. And there is another things that’s very nice because the member itself is make of telos tell Rosetta, which is a kind of biodegradable. So we don’t leave any finger painting in the environment. So the capsule and their life and the particle are going for the water and breaking down by downstream. So all our operational is very simple. We don’t need to exclude the old capsule and put in, in return, put the new one. We only need to add a new capsule, and this is make the operational much more easy. And the environmental impact much more better.

What is the shelf of a microbial capsule?

Antoine Walter:

I’m glad you made that precision because I was imaginating, you know, PVDF membranes left in water. So talking with microplastics, that would have been kind of awful, but it’s leverage neutral once more. So you control STD tissue or control P H what is your control?

Ofir Menashe:

No, we don’t. We don’t have the possibility to control acidity in the water because it’s a very large water body. It’s there it’s required. So lots of chemicals, we are trying to adapt the bacteria into the environment as much as we can. Sometimes you need to challenge by itself. There is a wide range of the bacteria that it can challenge it’s. Most of the bacteria it’s from the range of 5.5 pH into a 9.5. So it’s very wide range if it industrial, and we have a non silica influence, we are saying to the industrial client that you need to have a Brett Rickman. One of the pre-treatment is to stabilize the pH into this range that we are talking about. Gabi . You wanted to add something here.

Gabi Wolkinson:

Yeah. I just wanted to add about the automation part that you would ask yourself. Okay. So how do you know exactly when the capsules break down and when you have to add in more, the procedure is very easy. What we do is we just add a half of the amount of the capsules that you actually need once a month. And then if you know that they break down every two months, you’re never going to be in lack of bacteria in the water.

Ofir Menashe:

And in that point, you are gaining two different sludge age inside the capsule, a young one, and an old one with their advantages.

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Antoine Walter:

So Akio for the automation part coming back to, to the business model, how, how is your business model working? Is it like a subscription model as subscribed to, to bio castle? And every month I get my new capsules, which I bought into water.

Gabi Wolkinson:

Well, what’s nice about the capsules is that they have a long shelf life, as long as they’re dry. So you don’t have to bring in an order once a month and wait for the capsules to come in and be worried that you’re not going to get supply. You can supply yourself in the next five years and with capsules, as far as we’re concerned and just leaving them in the storage and use the knives you need. We have clients that are interested in putting a capsules on their shelves, just for safety reasons. In case they have some kind of hazard in the water, they just add the capsules and know that they’re at that they’re safe. Another thing that’s very nice about it is the flexibility we’ve had people say to us, well, if we start working with the capsules and now we’re stuck, we have to work with you now for years. And I used to say, why do you have to work with us for years? If you’re not happy, you can stop tomorrow. However, if you buy a device for a million dollars now, what are you going to do? Then you’re stuck for years with a device that you spent a million dollars on with us. As long as you’re happy you treat, we treat your water and we get paid for it. You buy capsules, that’s it. It’s very, very simple, straightforward, flexible, and not to what we call it. A Catholic marriage, right?

Microbial Encapsulation, a versatile plant?

Antoine Walter:

Yeah. On the other end, if, if they leveraged the added value of your system and just build a simple and single tank, and now they wants to get rid of your, your solution while they need to, to build the full plant. But yeah, I mean, if you treat the water, you treat the water. So, yeah, but just to say, I’m still trying to keeping my, my, my, my devil’s advocate hat on a bit,

Gabi Wolkinson:

They postponed the investment. It’s just postponing the investment. The investment will have to come in now or tomorrow or the next day, or not at all. If you continue working with our treatment,

Antoine Walter:

How close are you to membrane manufacturers? Because, you know, I had on that microphone Haris Kadrispahic from LiqTech, who was mentioning that they were working on the way to add a layer of biology on top of the membrane. So to have the biology outside of the, the hardware membrane and know that companies like aquaporin are doing similar stuff, and you’re taking the opposite route, you’re putting a biological layer within the membrane. We’re just wondering if there are some synergies there to leverage between what they are looking at and what you are looking at.

Ofir Menashe:

Most of the, of, of the technology and people ask me about the clotting of the member. And if there is any possibilities of clotting the member and by creating a biofilm above the membrane surface. And I tell them that the membrane, our member is having a strong, negative charge or strong negative Zeta potential, which means it’s rejecting a biofilm formation because the biofilm itself, it’s also having a negative charge. So we don’t actually see any growth of biophilic on the surface of the capsule, but you didn’t ask me about that. You asked me about a different thing and no, we don’t have currently any connection with other member companies or collaboration in that case.

Antoine Walter:

So how would you grow your solution from there? Because it sounds like so easy. I mean, I’m even surprised that it’s not really, that’s a subscription model because I would clearly see that, you know, I have a pond with 15 fish just beyond my holes. I would say, Hey, I take the, your X, X, X, X access subscription. And I get my, my 12 capsules every month. And I’m very happy about that. But how do you grow from your, your position today? How international are you and how international do you expect to be and is sky the limit?

Gabi Wolkinson:

The major problem with what you’re talking about a subscription is that everybody of water is different. And then each one is a tailor made. So it’s not like I can say, okay, you buy the subscription and you’re set for life. It doesn’t just doesn’t work like that in this industry. And therefore you need to have a setup of engineers to back up the solution for each customer. We actually started our commercial life at the end of last year and decided to go international slowly, but it wasn’t working. It’s not working too well for us because the international companies are asking for help in different aspects. And, and we find ourselves working in Spain, in China and in Greece and in other places. So our business model is actually to we’re looking for representatives abroad. We have our eyes set on a few, but there is nothing that we are a hundred percent settled on. In the meantime, we’re taking care of the individual clients that we’re starting to work with and we’ll evolve from there.

Starting Commercial Expansion in the middle of a Pandemic

Antoine Walter:

It was probably not the easiest year to start shipping commercially worldwide when the full word is in lockdown. So I guess that doesn’t help. But you mentioned something very interesting about, it’s not like you, you said it’s for once and then nothing happens because we are dealing with natural stuff, which might be drifting over time. Does that mean that you, you take some samples on a regular basis that your clients send to you so that you tell them, Oh, you’re using the red capsules. You should take two additional green ones and two, I’m putting stupid colors on it. I guess you have scientific names for that. How does that work?

Gabi Wolkinson:

Yeah, I will answer for that. First of all, do you have a water analysis data we are asking for the water analysis data and try to understand what is the data that’s that’s they providing watch out? The problem is, secondly, we are asking for the process itself, what the infrastructure, what is the operational activity? The drought leaks, everything. We are actually learning about how they treat the water I’ll decline, treat the water. The second stage is to ask the client, what do you want to achieve? What is expectation from us? You want

Ofir Menashe:

To reduce nitrogen. You want to reduce Cod. You want, you want to increase capability. Office is in for fracture. After we are decided, what is the, the treatment target? Then we can start to think about our solution. Are we tailor-made our solution to his existing process.

Microbial Encapsulation – a perfect process for combinations?

Antoine Walter:

And I’ve seen a couple of studies on your website. So scientific studies about combination of treatments. Do you have like a preferred causing our sister or brother treatments, which should capsules work smoothly and synergistically with?

Ofir Menashe:

Yes, actually, let’s go to the basic. We are working side by side with activated sludge. For instance, this is one technology. The other one is two are trying to combine our technology with other treatments, such as a UV radiation, physical or advanced oxidative processes in order to increase an accelerated the biodegradation of compounds, especially the heart biodegradable one. And now there is another thing that is very interesting today because nowadays the analysis, the water analysis get a huge progress. And now we are starting to understand that we have a small amounts of compounds. We call them micro pollutants that although that they have a very small amount in the water, their impact upon the public health and nature are significant. I will give you an example. For instance, Orman sex. They were dial hormones that we are also decorated insight into the, our sewage. It’s going to the water fish and ambience feeling only five nanogram per liter, which is it’s nothing.

Ofir Menashe:

And they all started to transplant. So males into females, that’s when we are ending or heading all the next generation and Orman Sensex, there are done, almost are working on the part of the DNA so they can influence the expression of the DNA. So this is only one example. The other example is pharmaceuticals. For instance, if we take Berlin few years ago, there was a vessel billing for conference. They’re talking about Gabapentin it’s anticonvulsants and medicine, and they already have it inside the tap water. So the next generation of treatment will be micropolitan. There is two countries almost free. That’s already have regulation, and those are Switzerland and California. And I think Germany is getting insider. And now we need to know to figure how to treat it. And probably it will be in two sides. One side will be in at the end of domestic wastewater treatment plants and the other one in the origin of contamination, for instance, in pharmaceutical industry. And I think this is, this is the future of the treatment of water of water treatment in this industry. And we are of course, applying to this direction.

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Can Microbial Encapsulation help remove Micropollutants?

Antoine Walter:

Actually, it’s very interesting that you, you mentioned micro pollutants don’t get me started on the micro pollutants because if you do so we are there for two other hours, but when we were making some, I used to be part of our research programs. You mentioned Switzerland to be a forward looking country. And I was involved actually in, in the, in the first projects, they were in Switzerland to treat micro pollutants and we made some studies and we found out that, you know, the, the biological step in the waste water treatment plan is already eliminating 40 to 60% of the micro pollutants. But a good portion of those are not really eliminated. They are transferred into the sludge. And depending on what you do with this ledge, you might be putting those glutens back in the environment at some point. So I really see here a first advantage is that if you get rid of the sludge, because everything is put into inside the capsule, then probably you’re, you’re, you’re already solving one first part of the problem. And the second thing is that if we were treating only 60 persons through the microbial, I mean, they’re the biological step.

Antoine Walter:

It wasn’t really targeted at certain pathogens or certain micro pollutants. And now if you pour in your approach, which is to say, I can have that specific bacteria, which is looking at that specific problem that changes the paradigm. You mentioned that you’re involved in, in research project. Is there something you can already talk about here, or is it something that’s addressed in the future?

Ofir Menashe:

I can disclose something. We started to develop this process on a 2016, we were starting to target sex or murder. Orman’s sturdily Orman’s as a model for micro pollution. When we consulting with very senior engineers, they said we don’t have any chance because there is a competition. And I asked him, what do you mean about competition about between the bacteria and say, no, no, not between the bacteria, between the carbon sources. You are a very hard bio-degradable carbon source, which is the Germans. And on the other sides, you have a lots of easy to eat carbon sources. So obviously the bacteria will choose the soft. We call it soft bod or soft compounds to buy would degrade. I think it’s wrong. I think it’s wrong because now you, you are looking at bacteria as something that can choose. I feed that bacteria don’t have any capability to choose.

Ofir Menashe:

They evolve in India, evolutions, biochemical, process enzymes, and once are feeling once they are feeling the common sense that they are using. They started to break it down. If they’re not a carbon sources, of course they are using both, but still they will work on this major path. But this was very easy to prove in a tube. We put our bacteria in a tube with the sex Oman Stordahl Orman as the sole carbon source. And after a while, check the kinetic rate of the biodegradation. And then we took another tube, put it the Ormond and a glucose, which is considered very easy to biodegrade. Why do you think was the results not significant? It’s still breaking down significantly. There are many.

Antoine Walter:

So if you have the right bacteria either, right, and Zim, there’s no competition between various reactions.

Ofir Menashe:

You say something very important because if you have the right bacteria, what is the right bacteria? The right bacteria is the one that develop the capability to use this contaminant as a sole carbon sources as a sole carbon sources, which mean that it can take in the contaminates from estates up to mineralization, into CO2 and provide a carbon source and energy by that.

Antoine Walter:

So we’re back to your point about breeding the right bacteria. It’s fascinating. It’s really fascinating, but that’s all you don’t get me started because

Ofir Menashe:

It’s all about,

Antoine Walter:

That’s very interesting because you mentioned Switzerland, we start getting certain bacteria. You mentioned California, which is looking at 1.4 dioxane. And you have also now that the full P festival, which is another, another story. And then there is some specific lender in Germany, which is also in, in Sweden. I mean, it’s, it’s really popping up right and left. And of course the more we are going to go into reusing our wastewater, the more it’s going to be a hot topic to, to deal with this micro pollutants. But I take a mental note here. We have to make another deep dive on that. Another time Gabi off your, it was a pleasure to discuss your technology. I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

My first question is what is the most exciting project you’ve been working on and why?

Ofir Menashe:

Well, I think everything is exciting because it’s new. We are really excited industry. Once we

Gabi Wolkinson:

Are developed a new process treatment, this is really exciting, especially when we see the succeed. Not all the, the study was very successful, but once you will see the success of a new treatment that no one done it before, this is really fulfilled. I can talk about the fish. Growing fish is amazing. It’s an amazing experience. And to be able to do it in a significantly different way than the world does it amazing. We put the nitrification process inside the fish pool. No one in the world does such a thing. It’s totally amazing.

Antoine Walter:

I have a totally different experience about growing fishes. It’s a different story, but I’m in a battle against the hero and in my, in my region, which are just eating all my fishes. But yeah, but yeah, sorry, I, I don’t want to sidetrack you here, whatever I did with you, a Gabi , what is your, your favorite part of your current job?

Gabi Wolkinson:

Oh, I love working with startup companies. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past 25 years is taking ideas and turning them into a successful companies. That’s what I did also in the I’ve been doing in my previous work and now with the field to take the an idea or a product that he invented into, turn it into something commercial that really has an impact and not just something that sells, but to have a good impact on the environment fills me up that does it for me.

Antoine Walter:

I didn’t ask him to do David. It should have, so let me, let me do it. Now. I was discussing with, with Gaetane Suzenet on that on that microphone a couple of weeks ago, and she was mentioning that the water industry is rich of startups and many startups, and it’s switch of majors. There are some majors, some even are emerging. What’s that? That’s another topic, but we are missing the scale-ups because sometimes the majors see interesting startups and they buy them out or simply startups want to have an impact locally, but they don’t go to that bigger scene. What is your ambition? I don’t think there there’s a wrong answer to that question, but what is your ambition? Where do you see bio castle in five years?

Gabi Wolkinson:

Castle in five years is probably going to have competition,

Antoine Walter:

Which is a good thing. That’s

Gabi Wolkinson:

Yeah, that says it all that says it all. It just shows that the process is right. And if the process is right in the industry for encapsulation, for macro encapsulation is a correct way to go and the world is going to acknowledge this kind of a technology, and it’s going to impact the environment positively. And if that happens, then that means that we’re going to go sky high.

Antoine Walter:

So the best thing I can wish was to have competition. Yeah. You know, usually it’s a, it’s not a good sign when you’re the only one at

Ofir Menashe:

The beginning. It’s not a good sign, but, you know, I, it always goes back to when we went to in marketing and we asked, why are all the shoe stores on the same street? That’s because people know where to go to buy shoes. So they all located in the cells on the same street. It’s okay. It’s okay. You mean, we’re not going to be alone here in any case. And the big companies are going to continue dominating the markets in any case. So the more this type of technology is acknowledged, then obviously companies are going to go appoint to start working in the same direction. And that means that we’re in a good place to be. Then we have to be smart enough to keep our head above the water and to grow ourselves faster than everyone else. And to be one step in front with new ideas, with new developments and with new processes.

Ofir Menashe:

And I think that that is what makes us a strong company is that we think out of the box, we’re bringing new processes to the market and that’s, what’s going to keep us going. That’s what’s going to keep us in front of everyone else. I’m more a dreamer. Now I’m a dreamer. I want in five years that bio castle would change the water industry world. Because if you you’re looking, this is an industry. That’s almost the only industry that expense only upgrading of infrastructure, only large scale, just enlarging scales and not reduce, reducing the infrastructure as we experienced in all others industries. So we, in this industry, we only experienced in enlargement and increasing in energy demand and bio castle. This small company want to opposite this direction to doing downscale things. We already done it. We extract much more for our infrastructure by 20%. And this is the direction to find a new ways to treat water, which costs less, which required less environmental resources and still will have good quality of water of product.

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Antoine Walter:

Well, actually, I beg you to believe me. I’m not trying to sidetrack you every second, but you mentioned, you’re looking for competition in five years and you want to have that big impact. I’m not sure competition is going to go one to one with you, but it looks like to me that several companies are looking at this activated sludge and thing. Hey, we can do that better. I’m thinking here of companies like, you know, narrate. I don’t know if you, if you know them,

Ofir Menashe:

That’s interesting because activated style slides, I think it’s from 1914 is more than 100 years old technology. So we need to upgrade. So now you’re, you’re in about granulated activated sludge and everything. And why is the Gabi  said that’s, it will be much more easy for us to have some competition because we don’t have something to compare with. We are so advanced that there is nothing to compare, and this is hard to explain.

Gabi Wolkinson:

Look, if you need to penetrate a market and you have to keep explaining the idea again and again, and again, it makes it hard to penetrate. It makes it hard to go into. And when I said that I wanted competition. It’s not that I’m want competition. I’m just saying that in five years from now, if there is competition, that means that we’re very successful. That’s the idea.

Ofir Menashe:

And adoption is very hard because we need to educate now the client itself, because we’re bringing something new, which is operated quite new, which reducing other things that they are used to, to use it, the form, a lot of fears, and you need to educate it, that this is this type of technology is actually working.

Antoine Walter:

Let me bring that back on track. I was the one to sidetrack. So I’m going to bring it on track. What is the trend to watch out in the water industry? And you’re not allowed to tell me encapsulating nature. What is the, all the trends to watch for?

Ofir Menashe:

Yeah. The trends are now are trying to use the bacteria in a dry, stayed in granulated, stayed in liquid with you know, by reactor next to the bio-reactor, which all the time, feeding the bioreactor all around, all around solution. This is why we, I told you that we are far away from those solutions. We are bringing something which is quite new and quite different for this industry. And it’s really to compare the fall into other things.

Gabi Wolkinson:

I want to take your question back to the beginning. When you asked, are we treating water or reading bacteria? I think that the trends are to try and breed bacteria better than people used to breed bacteria. I think that’s, that’s the, the major trend. How do you breed the bacteria in a better way so that you get better?

Antoine Walter:

How do you renovate the 19th,

Ofir Menashe:

Anton, you building all the engineering around the microbiology. So once you, you have the power to change the microbiology, all the engineering will change. And this is what we do is we are changing the core treatment here.

Antoine Walter:

I take it as a trend. I mean, that sounds like a fascinating field at least. Do you have sources to recommend, to keep up with water and waste wastewater markets and news?

Gabi Wolkinson:

We have a very good contact, actually global water data, right? Yeah.

Ofir Menashe:

We actually have a few academic academic publications, some of them in wa one of them in water research, for instance, which is very high in having very high impact factor.

Antoine Walter:

So w w we’re bringing in some experience academic, and also in project itself, you can find it in our website@biocastle.com. Actually, I have to subscribe to that one because I’ve read through your website and I found very interesting stuff. So it’s really, it’s a, if you’re into scientific papers, you really cool scientific papers on your, on your website. So I would definitely recommend that. And I are going to put the link in the, in piece of notes, of course. And which brings me to my last question after both of you, which have been awesome guests, would you have someone to recommend me to invite on that same microphone? We have a scene.

Antoine Walter:

I think we should get a scene from the global water data. He’s a fantastic guy. I think he’s in Indonesia and he just got promoted in his company and he’s on top of all the water data, but you know, if you want to have him on that microphone, tell him because I’m trying hard. And he keeps giving me all the contacts and awesome. And he really gives me really awesome guests, awesome suggestions, but he refuses to be himself on that microphone. So tell him, tell him yourself, come on. That microphone will Gabi  a few. It’s been a pleasure. I can only imagine what it could be to have even more lively discussions without the barrier of the, of the long-term distance. So I hope that we can have a follow-up discussion, the three of us around the same table. Thanks a lot for sharing all these inspiring insights into something I wasn’t aware of this, this way to bring nature to a new level, encapsulating nature. I mean, it’s a strong marketing take, but it’s also a very interesting take. So thanks a lot. And yeah. Talk to you in five years to see if you achieved. What’s your, you, you have in line and thank you. Thank you. It was lovely talking to you, and I hope that we don’t wait five years to talk to them.

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The post Do you Really Provide Job Security to your Best Workers? appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

EMG International is a leading company in Anaerobic Wastewater treatments, with a pretty unique take on anaerobic digestion.

This episode is part of my series of Industrial Water. Check it out!

What we covered:

How Anaerobic Fluidized Bed Digestors enable to produce 4 times more energy than they consume to treat wastewater

How they can be fully automated to let industrial players focus on their production lines

4 good reasons to learn a new wastewater acronym with the AFBD’s benefits.

How “hands-on” was literal when he started EMG together with his brother in the 90s

The similarities and differences between AFBDs, MBBRs and Microbial Fuel Cells

How to valorize biogas with the best efficiency

How anaerobic digestion is actually a replica of what’s happening in… our body!

How EMG International addresses the industrial wastewater treatment market (and beyond!)

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Infographic: Anaerobic Digestion

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Manaf on LinkedIn

Have a look at EMG International’s website

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi Manaf. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me actually. It’s interesting because we are in, in Pennsylvania with you today. And I like to start a new life, like usually with a postcard. What can you tell me about the place where you’re at right now? Something crispy is something really strange. I don’t know. You tell me.

Manaf Farhan:

Well, I’m sitting in a media, Pennsylvania today, which is right outside of Philadelphia. Philadelphia is between Washington and DC. We’re having a cool spring. So it’s a little bit of a late bloom for the trees and the flowers, but there are some flowers out there and it’s really pretty handsome, nice crisp spring day. And it’s a great to talk about wastewater.

Antoine Walter:

Well, actually, when preparing for that discussion, we were we’ll have together. And as I shortly alluded to you, when we were just chatting before hitting the record button, when I was scrolling your websites, I stumbled upon a video, which is not your everyday video you see on the, on the water industry company. And it was an interview led by Pennsylvania States Senator an interview of you. So sometimes you see that the contrary of what a professional interviewing a politician and asking him some crispy stuff about what if things of the environment or whatever. And here it’s the opposite. You, you got interviewed by a Senator, a former state Senator, Pat Vince. So what’s the story about that? Is there a funny anecdote about that one?

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah, that, that was an interesting project. That was one of the earlier projects we did in the early two thousands. It was at a dairy farm to treat cow manure and that project was funded by the state of Pennsylvania and the Senator at the time, Senator, Pat Vance was interested in sustainability and promoting that kind of project and that kind of work. And so she asked if we could do an interview and it turned out to be pretty interesting.

Starting with Anaerobic Digestion

Antoine Walter:

So that was on a dairy farm and it touched your field of expertise, which is an Anaerobic digestion. And if I want to be provocative, I have to start with that one. How do you get interested in Anaerobic digestion?

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah, it’s interesting. The story of life, right? How things happen. So I studied civil engineering and undergraduate at Notre dame or Notre Dame university. Not, not, you’re not you’re done. And then from there I studied civil engineering again and I studied environmental engineering. I turned from civil to environmental for graduate school. So I was interested in water and wastewater treatment and sustainability for a while, a long time. This is since graduate school and my dissertation was in anaerobic digestion. So that’s how it started for me.

Antoine Walter:

So you did your dissertation on that, so you, you, your PhD, right?

Manaf Farhan:

Correct. Yes. At the university of Pennsylvania.

Antoine Walter:

And since then it was a continuous love with that field. Yeah. Yeah.

Manaf Farhan:

Well, I, I did an in-depth dive into the process and the science of anaerobic digestion and I studied different reactors and how they perform. I studied them for a year and a half detailed analysis of performance of different digesters and, you know, was able to compare and contrast different technologies. And after that, I just started EMG in 1996 with my brother. And we have been ever since we’ve been promoting this technology and building these systems.

Founding EMG to leverage Anaerobic Digestion breakthroughs

Antoine Walter:

So EMG is your, your company today that you you’re the CEO, right? So you’re the founder and CEO and 25 years you, you dedicate to that anaerobic digestion and a bit more, I guess. Yeah, actually I was sold to that interview by your colleague, Paul Jarrett, because he told me that you just took anything that was existing within anaerobic digestion, everything, which was wrong with it. And you made it better. Sounds good. But I like to start to that actually, what was wrong with anaerobic digestion? You mentioned that you, you, you were studying that in depth. So what was it that needed to be corrected within that field?

Manaf Farhan:

Sure, sure. First, my friend who introduced us is Jared Paul. And Oh, sorry. It does not, not a problem, not a problem. So yeah, initially in the seventies, eighties, and even nineties, anaerobic digestion was primarily used in wastewater treatment plants that are municipal to treat this for wastewater, which is typically treated aerobically with the presence of oxygen. And when that’s done, it produces sludge aerobic systems are energy consumers, and they produce a lot of bacteria or sludge. The yield ratio for Aerobic systems is 0.6. Meaning for every 100 pounds of biochemical oxygen demand, 60 pounds of sludge or biomass is produced. So historically anaerobic digestion has been used in the United States at least to treat the sludge or the biomass that’s produced from municipal wastewater treatment plants. It takes that sludge and they treated anaerobically and they produce biogas. So it’s a secondary treatment or as an afterthought.

Antoine Walter:

So you have the, the waterline in the waste water treatment plants, and the water line is usually the one everybody focuses on and, anaerobic digestion is on the sludge line. So you extract your sludge from your rated Baskins and that you drive it to the digester and hopefully it produces some within. But what you’re saying is that there was a better use to make from the technology and, and probably a better yield.

Manaf Farhan:

Correct? So we focus on using anaerobic digestion for treating industrial wastewater and the easy target. The primary target for us is food and beverage manufacturing because obviously food and beverage manufacturing is high strength. It is biodegradable. I see behind you, there’s a sign for a Cola product. So, you know, when, when they produce soda, for example, they use sugar and they use flavorings and the sugar is highly biodegradable. And we just put that through an anaerobic digester to produce methane or bio gas instead of producing more sludge to neutralize the wastewater.

Antoine Walter:

So you basically erase one step. You say, you don’t need to go through this Aerobic treatment, which produces sludge. You can directly drive waste water in you take methane out and kind of already treated water at the outlet of the digester so that the digester is no longer on the, on the sideline. It is the main treatment.

Manaf Farhan:

That’s a very smart way to look at it, Antoine. Basically, instead of I mentioned earlier that the yield for aerobic systems is 0.6, the yields for anaerobic systems or anaerobic processes is close between 0.03 to 0.06. And so it’s between 10 to 20 times less meaning that you produce for every 100 pounds of BOD, you produce between three to six pounds of sludge. And so the process itself is slower. It’s net energy producer. It produces less biomass as a by-product and it basically converts the organic starches sugars, alcohols, uh, proteins, whatever fats into biogas, CH4 and CO2.

How does Anaerobic Digestion look like on a plant?

Antoine Walter:

How does that look like on the plants? Is it those cylinder that we see in the conventional plants? Or does it look differently?

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah, one of the questions you asked a second ago is how is the technology better now? How has the anaerobic digestion technology better? Now, as I mentioned, first in a municipal waste water treatment plant, the digesters anaerobic digester is where large completely mixed systems. So it’s a big tub that’s completely mixed and they design it for a hydraulic retention time of between 18 and 20 days, meaning that the water would stay in the reactor for an average of 18 to 20 days, because in those big mixed systems, the hydraulic retention time is the same as the mean cell residence time. Meaning the average time that a bacteria particles stays in the reactor. So they design them so that the bacteria stays in the reactor for about 18 to 20 days, because the most sensitive bacteria in the anaerobic process are the methanogens and their doubling time is between 12 to 14 days. And so to be safe, they designed them to about 20 days, 18 to 20 days. So the next step was to go from these conventional completely mixed digesters to a better process. And that transformation happened when automation came on the scene in the late eighties, early nineties, and then it became more ubiquitous. There’s more process controls. Now there’s remote access. There’s better reactor configurations. So in the last 20 to 30 years, that’s transformed the reputation and the performance of anaerobic digesters.

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the reactor configuration. If I got it right by scrolling your websites, actually, it’s not just a tank that you have. There is something inside the tank.

Manaf Farhan:

Correct? So the process that we have is called the anaerobic fluidized bed reactor. AFV or AFBD that has been digested.

Anaerobic Fluidized Bed Digestion – a new wastewater acronym

Antoine Walter:

That’s cool. Because in every single podcast, I have a new combination of letters. You know, we had MABR, MBBR and MBR. Now we are at AFDR?

Manaf Farhan:

AFBD! It Is a silo or a tank. It’s a vertical tank. We flow from the bottom up. We add a bio carrier as you know, bacteria like surfaces. And the bio carrier is a small particle, like the size of sand and we flow upward. And so the balance between the up-flow and the weight of the particle, the mass of the particle, given the force, now that balance is causes it to be fluidized or it’s swims around a gentle Brown in motion. And then we inoculate the bio carrier with the bacteria and the bacteria lives on the surface of these particles. And by doing that, we have a very nice hybrid model where it’s a completely mixed reactor and it’s an attached growth reactor. So it’s, there is a buyer carrier. So typically when you have bacteria living in water, you get bacteria populations or mixed liquor, volatile, suspended, solids. I know you like acronyms, I’ll give you more MLVSS. So the MLVSS of bacteria living in suspension is typically about between 3000 and 5,000 milligrams per liter. The bacteria population that we get in our AFBD system is between 40,000 and 60,000 milligrams per liter. And so we have upwards of 20 times higher biomass population, and you know, more biomass is a more stable process.

Antoine Walter:

So you mentioned the acronyms, how different, if it’s if, if the Bio-carrier is in movement, if it’s free days bed, how different is it from an anaerobic MBBR? So moving bed bioreactor

Manaf Farhan:

Fluidized bed, technically is in the category of moving bed. Bioreactors. The difference primarily is in the shape and the size of the media. Typically MBBRs use plastic balls as the media and they flow up and then they swim around a little bit. It’s not completely mixed, it’s a moving bed. And on top they put some kind of a constraint or a net to make sure that these plastic balls don’t leave. So the AFBD, the fluidized bed process is similar to an MBBR. It is a moving bed reactor. It’s a fluidized bed. It’s not the same because it’s different media. And our cross-sectional area is much smaller because of the reactor is, is more vertical.

Anaerobic Digestion as a Wastewater Treatment

Antoine Walter:

So you put raw wastewater in. So this industrial wastewater, so high strength, wastewater, and at the outlets, what do you have. To which level is it treated and what would you put behind one of these AFBD?

Manaf Farhan:

Sure. So we do our process usually has equalization and the fluidized bed reactor. We use equalization to allow the wastewater to start to, to break down for hydrolysis liquefaction and the beginning of the acid generation process. And when we do that, the precursors to methane generation are the short chain volatile, organic acids and acidic acid. And primarily it’s a scenic acid that drives the methane generation. So we want to get to the point where as much of the wastewater has been broken down and volatilized, and even into the volatile assets and ready to go into the methane generation. Once we generate the biogas, which is a combination of CO2 and CH4 that’s collected and processed, and we recover the electricity from it and waste heat on the backside. It depends on the discharge limits. Most of our systems for wastewater treatment in the food and beverage industry go into a sewer that depends on the industrial user permit.

Manaf Farhan:

That’s what they’re called here in United States. Are you or a significant industrial use permit where the treated wastewater has to go to a sewer and they tell you, for example, the bod has to be under either 300 milligrams per liter, or under say a thousand pounds per day, you have a limit. So it depends on where we are in that spectrum. If we can discharge to the sewer or the client can discharge the sewer without polishing, we would go straight to the sewer. Or if fellowship is required, we would put another polishing unit after our system. And it could be even to the point where it could be streamed level discharge, where we can just discharge it to the environment under a different permit, which here in the United States is called a Speedy’s or nip. These permit, a national pollutant discharge elimination system, or SP a state pollutant discharge elimination system.

Antoine Walter:

If I get it right, your sweet spot. In terms of application, is this high strength wastewater you usually would find in, in food and beverage, what would be the top three reasons for me, let’s say that’s the beauty of that podcast. I can imagine many things. Let’s say I run a plant, a soda plant. What would be your, your top three arguments to tell me why your technology would be the best suit for me

Manaf Farhan:

Today? We’re all aware of our impact on the environment as human beings you know, with industries and the goal is for us to minimize impact on the environment. So the first and biggest driver in my mind, that’s why I got into this business is to reduce the impact on the environment. And so the soda manufacturer might make delicious soda, and they might be very excited about their products and they keep continuously creating new products that help them into the marketplace. But every time we do that, there’s an impact on the environment in terms of generating more wastewater with more pollutants. And so the first thing that I would say is, you know, these manufacturers can put an anaerobic fluidized bed, digestive system there and reduce their carbon footprint, reduce the amount of waste that they put into the sewer or discharge into the environment.

Manaf Farhan:

And sustainability is a big, important part. And a lot of manufacturers are very responsible and very aware of the importance of reducing the carbon footprint and their impact on the environment. When we put a fluidized bed digester in to treat an industrial wastewater, we can reduce the organic discharge to a sewer by 80, 90, 95%. Sometimes if we put polishing, we can reduce it by 99% and then we can recover bio gas, which we can make into electricity and recover waste heat from that application. And so we can then reduce the amount of energy that they use, the amount of electricity they consume per unit produced, and the amount of natural gas they consume for you to produce. So the biggest in my mind, the biggest driver is to be responsible and to manufacture sustainably. The other thing is reducing costs because a lot of times they produce, they put these pollutants to this sewer and they have to pay a surcharge fee. So those pollutants go to a municipal wastewater treatment plant that treats the wastewater aerobically, which is an energy intensive process. So, you know, that is going to have a bigger impact on the environment. And so when we put the process treatment onsite, it is a very small footprint because a lot of times these manufacturers are space limited. They can reduce their discharged to the sewer and they can reduce the cost that they pay with that.

Can anaerobic digestion be a net positive wastewater treatment?

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the, the energy, how far are you from being energy positive with your systems?

Manaf Farhan:

We’re there! So typically the bed digester has parasitic energy requirements of somewhere between 20 to 30%. And so the energy required to run our system is between 20 to 30% of the total energy that we produce.

Antoine Walter:

Okay. So said differently, you produce four to five times more energy than, than what you use.

Manaf Farhan:

Yep. Yeah. Three to four times is right about there. Yeah. Okay.

Antoine Walter:

Because, you know, wastewater treatment plants which are net energy positive or a target for a while in, in many places, but it turns out here you’re not even made it, but you go beyond that.

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah. And you know, the exciting thing here is that you mentioned cutting out the aerobic process and putting the anaerobic process in there so that we don’t produce more sludge. Yes, we don’t produce as much sludge. We also produce energy. And so it’s not requiring energy for us to treat the waste and now we’re turning waste to energy. And the other thing is of course, where populations are growing, demands are growing. And so a lot of these manufacturers have to increase their production. And when they do that, they have to make a decision. Do we generate more waste? Do we pay more money? They put these wastewater famous systems onsite. It enables them to expand because they’re generating, they’re treating their waste before they put it into the sewer.

The differences between anaerobic digestion and microbial fuel cells

Antoine Walter:

Many questions here. There are many things I have to unpack in what you just said, but let, let me, let me stay for a second on this energy topic. How different is your technology to a microbial fuel cell?

Manaf Farhan:

Sure. So a microbial fuel cell is it converts the chemical energy to electrical energy by the organisms reactions. They basically create that differential between the two sides of the reaction to create electron flow, to generate electricity. So for us here, we use a biochemical process to convert the organic portion into another compound, which is bio gas. So in an aerobic process, for example, it converts the bacteria, consume their organics, the carbon based compounds, and they produce new cell mass and CO2 and an anaerobic process in the bacteria consume the BOD and we produce mostly biogas. So we’re just converting the organics from the carbon chain into CO2, and CH4 whereas in a microbial fuel cell, they just convert the chemical energy into electrical.

Antoine Walter:

Well, it depends if, if it’s a fuel cell or a next realizes cell, but you’re right on the, on the principle. And what do you do with that biogas? Is it a cogeneration where you make some heat and some electricity, or is there another use? What, what’s the most common one?

Manaf Farhan:

There are several uses for the biogas in my experience and what we’ve been doing for 25 years, the most profitable way to use that bio gas is to put it to a combined heat and power system, which is typically a reciprocating engine that burns the methane gas, produces electricity. And then we recover about 50% of the BTU value of the waste heat. And so if we start with a 10 million, BTU’s a day, we convert roughly between 30 to 35% to electricity. And the other 50% of that 10 minute BTU goes to waste heat that’s recovered. And so we reduce the natural gas consumption requirements for a plant, and we reduce electricity consumption by producing our own electricity.

Considering Carbon Footprint

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the carbon footprint and what you just explained contributes to that carbon footprint elements. Another thing which I would see with the carbon footprint is that actually we always looking at CO2 because it’s, it’s the, these carbon emissions, but methane is much worse when you look at just a, the greenhouse effect, things about that. There must be a 20 or 25 times ratio between, between methane and CO2. So if you’re more efficient in transforming organic load into methane and making something useful out of it, instead of just discharging everything to a sewer where a part of it would be just going to the atmosphere one way or the other, do you see here also a positive impact of what your, what you’re doing or is it really negligible?

Manaf Farhan:

It is very positive. I was just mentioning a second ago that one of the things that we use this way, the method and byproduct for is to the combined heat and power CHP units. They’re also convening that fuel, the bio gas can be sent to a boiler site to produce heat, or we can purify the bio gas and put it into a pipeline gas quality, which is, you know, it’s more expensive and it has to be a bigger scale. But to your point, when we treat the organics, you have to keep in mind that, you know, they come from sugar. For example, in the soda process, they might come from dairy and the cheese manufacturing process, so that those organics were produced in the previous calendar year. So they’re very, short-lived the conversion of the production of the sugar or the organics or the milk.

Manaf Farhan:

It’s a very short cycle. And so if it were to go to a wastewater treatment plant, they were treated aerobically. So they have to spend energy to treat it. And of course the by-product of aerobic digestion is more sludge and CO2. When we treated anaerobically, we produced less sludge and we produced methane gas, which is a fuel. And so we’re saving on the CO2 production. If it were to be treated aerobically, we’re producing a fuel that can be variant to generate electricity. And because of the short cycle, that, that one year cycle, this is considered not a net new source, this is considered a zero net emissions because of that fact. And so, yes, we would produce the fuel that actually would reduce the carbon footprint and would reduce their waste discharge off site.

Anaerobic Digestion as a source of heat, water and power for industrial processes

Antoine Walter:

There’s another element in what you said before, which, which is intriguing to me, you know, if, if I’m still that industrial owning that plant to me so far, wastewater was, was more waste than water and was something which is kind of annoying with my process because I have that as a byproduct and I have to pay for written and everything. And now what you’re saying basically is that this is a resource. It is energy for my plant. It is a stuff I can extract. So would you say that for an industry, it, it changes a bit the way they are looking at their waste water, because it’s not just one line on the, on the bill they have from the utility. It’s also something where they can say, Hey, the heat of my plans, or they interested from my plants comes from that actual by-product from my process.

Manaf Farhan:

Absolutely. I think your, you have you’re right on there in the past. Industries have looked at wastewater as a tax or as a liability. They look at it as something that they have to pay money for to produce, to be in business where with our solution, with our technology, you can actually now convert that liability into an asset. And that’s part of the reason why we look at industrial wastewater because it has high concentrations of BOD it’s effectively sugar water, or it has, you know, milk waste. And it has other byproducts in it that are organic based it’s food waste that we’re going to convert into energy. We have basically converted a liability or a problem into an asset. The issue that we fight the most is acceptance because people still don’t trust wastewater treatment. They still don’t trust that it can be done effectively and reliably. And they think, you know what? I’ll just put in the sewer and pay that money and not have the headache. And that’s where our process comes in. And we’ve actually changed a lot of people’s outlook on this because it’s reliable, it’s automated small footprint and it makes their life easier. And they can then say that they’re, yes, they’re producing more, but they’re reducing their carbon footprint as they’re doing it. So they’re producing sustainably.

Antoine Walter:

I’ve seen it on your websites that you, you mentioned as an asset from your, your AFBD, that it recovers pretty fast and pretty easily from upsets, but what upsets your system? What, what can happen on the stream that upsets your bacteria? I guess

Manaf Farhan:

I would say, you know, there are several things that can happen in an industrial process, and most of them are human error. You know, obviously no one is perfect. And so this is where I would try to automate as much as possible. When you look at a plant making cake or a soda or packaging milk, they might have a batch that’s out of spec that set in the tank for too long, or someone added too much sugar, or, you know, something happened and it’s just off spec and they need to get rid of it. Well, they have to get rid of it because they have to get the next batch in and produce and bottle. So the only way to get rid of it is to put it down the drain. Some manufacturers have the ability to segregate that high strength waste and put it into a tank and ship it off and make it someone else’s problem.

Manaf Farhan:

But when a system is designed to handle say 5,000 pounds of BOD per day, by chemical oxygen demand, and all of a sudden you give it a waste batch that is off spec that puts in 12,000 pounds that day, you have more than doubled the load for a typical biological system that can create upset for the fluidized bed process. It can handle it. And that’s part of the reason why we chose to build these fluidized bed reactors, because they have a very high tolerance for shock loading for chemicals that are used for cleaning and biocides and disinfecting because of the high biomass population. I mentioned to you earlier that we get a biomass population of on the order of 40 to 60,000 milligrams per liter. And so there’s a lot more biomass and they can take that hit.

Antoine Walter:

It’s funny, because what you explained me here reminds me of a story, which I’ve heard. I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell that story because I heard it of microphone from one of my previous guests, but she was explaining me that she was working on a brewery and they had high organic loads entering the waste water treatment plants. And no one understood where that was coming from. And after days of investigation, they found out that someone was just washing off some tanks after the production of a special beer, which was, you know, a sugar, a beer, one of these party beers. Let’s put it that way. And, and when they were washing that off, it looks like, like water. I mean, it’s wa it was water with sugar, but for the operators, it was not possible to imagine that that was a waste.

Antoine Walter:

And that was a real problem because I mean, sugar in water is fully transparent. You don’t see it for them. It was just a perfect stream. So they couldn’t imagine that that would be the, the, the problem. So when you mentioned this element of automation being a key, I could imagine that you need to avoid trouble. That would happen just because two operator is an absolute expert when it comes to his process, but just has little clue when it comes to water and in wastewater. So what does automation change here? What are you able to automate?

Manaf Farhan:

That’s a great point that you’re asking, because the people who do the production, they know how to make soda. They know how to make cheese and how to make cake. They don’t care about wastewater to them. It’s an afterthought. And yeah, water was a lot of sugar, you know, beer, water with a lot of sugar in it. It’s just, it’s no problem. The guy can probably drink it and put the rest of it down the drain. You know, we have a client that put some ice cream in the trash, and I looked at the ice cream thing, and this is delicious stuff, why you’re wasting it. But of course they have their standards and they have, you know, whatever fits within their packaging requirements. That’s, what’s going to go. So the anaerobic process is sensitive in only that the methanogenesis, which is the step that produces the methane gas is sensitive.

Manaf Farhan:

That’s the bacteria of the five or six different groups of bacteria in the anaerobic digestion process. That is the most sensitive. And they require a pH. They require a temperature. They require loading rate, they required nutrients. So they have these strict requirements for environment that will make them thrive. But if we’re able to maintain these conditions, they will thrive. It will be reliable, and they will produce methane gas and they will treat the wastewater. And so, you know, you can take a world-class athlete and you feed them junk food, and you don’t give them enough rest or training, and they’re just not going to perform. So it’s the same concept here. So we automate pH with application, we automate the wastewater flowrate. We automate the temperature control. You know, we measure, for example, the bio gas generation rates. We also measure liquid levels and equalization tanks in the chemical feed totes. We keep these things on a strict diet and a strict under strict environmental conditions. When we do that, that’s how we optimize the performance.

Monitoring organic loads in anaerobic digestion

Antoine Walter:

You keep them under a strict diet, but you’re not monitoring the organic loads. How’s that possible?

Manaf Farhan:

We are actually, we are monitoring the organic loads. You can monitor the bod of the wastewater coming in, or the Cod of the wastewater coming in. It’s expensive. You know, it can, an inline Cod meter is about a hundred thousand dollars US

Antoine Walter:

You mean spectroscopic sensors?

Manaf Farhan:

Yes. Some are not as expensive. You can do like these photo cells that can do it cheaper based on solids, but these, the solid cells are only as good for waste with high solids. They’re not good for wastes with dissolved organics, like sugar production, for example. So there is technology out there that you can monitor the strength of the wastewater coming in, but here’s the thing, understanding the anaerobic process itself. And with the high flow rate that we have in our reactors, our reactors respond within 15 minutes of introducing higher strength wastewater. So if you give, let’s say, they’re used to getting wastewater with a BOD of 3000 milligrams per liter at, let’s say, 50 gallons per minute. You keep the 50 gallons per minute, and then you give them 10,000 milligrams per liter. Within 15 minutes, you’ll see a spike in the bio gas generation, 15 minutes, you’ll see a higher bio gas generation rate, higher pressure, and higher biogas generation. And so we have the ability to modulate the performance of the reactors and the operation of these reactors based on the bio gas generation. Cause it’s a very short reaction time.

Automating an anaerobic digestion plant

Antoine Walter:

You get this, this sign, which tells you that organic load is just going through the roof. What did you do with this information? Do you cycle it back to the operator and saying, Hey, that doesn’t sound like something that should happen. So maybe you shall have a look at your process. Maybe there’s something which is open, which should not, or are you just using equalization tank and wait for it to be a bit easier to treat or in the right window or

Manaf Farhan:

We do use equalization. And typically it’s about a half a day of the flow of the plant. So it’s pretty small size. Once you have more biogas generation, it means that there’s more organics going through the process. And of course it’s going to be, it’s a step process. And so the funny thing is that at that point, when you, when you’re bio gas doubles, for example, you’re going to have other indicators like the asset generation is going to increase and the methane generation will try to catch up to it. And so when that happens, your consumption for chemicals to control the pH, for example, 50% caustic will increase. And so as long as the system is equipped to handle it, as long as we have enough caustic to control the pH of the reactor and the level that we needed, and we’re producing biogas, it will recover. No problem. If we run the reactor at a higher organic loading rate, and it happens that the plant has run out of caustic at that instance, if at that moment, there is no caustic to control the pH of the reactor. Then the pH will start to drop that’s when we alert the operator. That’s when we say you have a problem, you need to stop either look at the strength of your wastewater coming in, or make sure that there’s enough caustic to keep the reaction in balance.

Antoine Walter:

I’d like to come back to operation in just a second, but there’s a last thing. You said you’re monitoring temperature. Are you heating up your system as well?

Manaf Farhan:

Of course. Yeah. So anaerobic reactions, the anaerobic digestion process is optimal at a temperature between 95 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit. So in French, that would be about 35 and a half to maybe about 38 degrees, maybe 40, even.

Antoine Walter:

Thanks for the translation.

Manaf Farhan:

No Problem. When I need you to translate cubic meters to gallons later. So it was good. But so we do the anaerobic digestion. It’s the same bacteria we have in our intestines. And so they’re used to 35 and a half degrees, C 95 degrees F. And so if the temperature drops, they’re going to have a stomachache. If the temperature drops, they’re not going to be able to produce. As a matter of fact, there’s a precipitous drop in the Midtown Genesis activity. Once you go below 85 or 80, 84 degrees Fahrenheit. And so we have to bring it up to the optimal temperatures between 95 and about 105, even 110 for those bacteria to produce optimally,

The business side of an anaerobic digestion company

Antoine Walter:

We’ve discussed a lot of technical stuff since the beginning of this conversation, which is fascinating to me, but I would have also a couple of business questions. You mentioned operation. And I was wondering if, if the system is, is so much automated, I mean, if there’s so much that you can actually automate, is it also within your reach to operate it instead of the operator to do like remote monitoring or even remote operation?

Manaf Farhan:

Of course, absolutely. So we design a programmable logic controller or a PLC panel that reads the temperature and the pH and the flow rates and liquid levels. And the pressures from 20 or 30 IO cards. And we take that into a SCADA screen, a supervisory control and data acquisition that basically automates the performance of these criteria within certain ranges. And you can actually remote access that you can access that from where you are in France. Right now, I could give you a login to some of our systems in the United States, and you can change some of the parameters. We could do it worldwide with the internet, which is the great thing about new technology. We’re using it to our advantage. So we can actually, we have several systems that we operate remotely and we can change the parameters based on what we see, because we log on remotely from our office and we see several systems and we can change wastewater flow. We can change temperature, we can change pH control with cost of condition. So all these things we’re able to do remotely, which makes the system performance that much more reliable.

Antoine Walter:

The reason why I’m curious about that is that because again, when I was preparing for this discussion on your website, I saw that you have some, some options for financing. So basically zero money down for still me as a customer. So an industrial player, and I was wondering that’s still leasing or rental or of financing, but would it be possible to go to the next level then to say, you put something on premise for the industrial player, but you would actually fully operate it remotely and you would sell a treatment capability or why not sell energy? Is it something which is doable? Or is it science fiction?

Manaf Farhan:

No, no, it’s very doable. So yes, we do lease and rent these units to clients. So that, of course there’s a lot of financial stresses on them because they want to make sure that they’re profitable. And so we lease them or we rent them to make the costs on their balance sheets, more on operations rather than on a capital

Antoine Walter:

As you turn a CAPEX into an OPEX that that’s, to me, industrial, it’s a, yeah, it’s great.

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah. But the, the other thing is we also offer service plans where we provide long range, you know, remote tech support. We can provide more onsite, you know, on a periodic basis, or we can run the system entirely. And the benefit of having our systems so highly automated is that the required manpower to do this is very little. So our systems, we have systems that can handle upwards of 20,000 pounds of BD per day, five digestive units. And they need two hours a day of operator time because they’re almost fully automated. So we also offer the option to install these systems, finance them, and operate them for our client.

What about international expansion?

Antoine Walter:

You’re called EMG international. How international are you?

Manaf Farhan:

A lot of people ask me that question. First of all, personally, I’m from Jordan. So I came to the United States to go to college. So in itself, that is some somewhere, you know, crossing international borders.

Antoine Walter:

It’s already very international!

Manaf Farhan:

But we also have partners in Canada with a trans altar is a large utility in Calgary, in Alberta and they’re equity owners, they’re our partners. And they believe in our mission and they support us with what we’re doing with treating wastewater sustainably.

Antoine Walter:

So it’s a really a North American focus if I might say so.

Manaf Farhan:

Yes it is for now. It is TransAlta has offices in Australia. We have consultants in England in London, which used to be part of the EU. Unfortunately, you people throw them out or are they jumped off the cliff, whichever you want to call it. So we are interested in the European market and the South American market as well.

The sweet spot of anaerobic digestion

Antoine Walter:

What’s the sweet spot for your technology, because we said it’s high strength wastewater, but where does that start? And when, where does, does that ends? I mean, maybe that doesn’t end, is there an upper limit and a lower limit where you would say you’re the best suited technology? Yeah.

Manaf Farhan:

So our technology is a lot of times it’s driven by cost to the client because of what they spend on their wastewater, if a client ships their wastewater offsite, because they’re not allowed to put it in the sewer because it’s above a certain threshold, then it becomes a lot more financially feasable because shipping costs are higher. If our client’s costs are driven by compliance or by you know, they’re putting too much to the sewer and they, they have surcharge there, then it’s a different conversation. So for us, if we’re talking about just the technical application, anything between, I would say 2000 pounds of BOD, do you use BOD and France? Is that an indicator? Yep. Okay, great. So anything between 2000 pounds, I asked you now 45 minutes and write anything between 2000 pounds of BOD on up, up to even a hundred thousand pounds of BOD, we can handle it is modular.

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Manaf Farhan:

So every unit will handle a certain amount of BOD per day. High strength waste becomes our specialty because a lot of biological wastewater systems shy away from strong, very strong wastewater, for example, whey, which comes from cheese manufacturing or yogurt. Manufacturing is very high strength. It can have a COD of a hundred thousand milligrams per liter, and that’s very difficult for Aerobic systems to handle. And if you’re putting it through other digestive systems, you have to watch the flow rates, et cetera. That becomes where we Excel. We also Excel in areas where footprint is very limited because we have the highest allowable, organic loading rate in the industry because we have the highest biomass population in the reactors. And so we require the smallest footprint

Antoine Walter:

That you were founded in. You founded it actually, it’s not, you were founded, you founded it in 1996. So that makes 25 years of history, which is already much of a milestone. How big are you today? How many people are working for EMG?

Manaf Farhan:

We’re a pretty small company. We are a very dynamic team where between us and TransAlta obviously it’s a different count right now. We have the ability to expand very quickly by bringing in people from the TransAlta team, because they give us all the engineers and a lot of resources. And so to answer your question, it depends on how you count it.

Antoine Walter:

No, I wasn’t asking to push you in a corner. It’s because, you know, one of my latest guests Gaetane Suzenet, on that microphone express that in the, in the water industry, there, there’s a very strong network of smaller startups or smaller size companies and not so much scale-ups. And we were discussing if the scale-ups weren’t existing, because it’s really technical industry has its niche and specialized applications, or because as soon as you become big enough, you a good prey for a bigger, even bigger players to just do kind of external innovation by buying you in. So I was just trying to, to put you on the map, just in order to shape my next question, which is where do you see yourself in five years?

Manaf Farhan:

We actually, we got to the point where we were a startup 25 years ago, and the first few systems that we built was difficult to get people interested. But once you have the first one in and you prove the results, you get the next one easier and you have to, and then the third one would be easier. We got to the point where we got the attention of the folks with trans shelter. They have a very strong focus on sustainability and renewable energy. And so last year they acquired a part of our business. And so now makes us so much deeper, bigger team in five years, our goal is to have the fluidized bed as the leading anaerobic digester technology in the United States. And in Canada, the market is huge. We have a lot of applications and a lot of opportunity for us to do that. And the market is growing. And so we see really unlimited potential and we can, we can do a lot of help. We can do a lot of good things for our clients in this industry.

How Anaerobic Digestion all started for EMG International

Antoine Walter:

Actually, I sent you to the future, but you just alluded to something in the past, which I’m very interested in. Can you remember the story of your first project? How’d you come to do to remember the plant? It was, it’s something you, you can still talk about. How do you come with a new technology and push it to the market?

Manaf Farhan:

Of course, that’s a great question. One, the first project that we did was in 2003, 2004, and no one would listen to anybody saying, Hey, I have a great technology. This is going to be the best, next best thing. And you have no proof. You have, you haven’t built any other systems. So we built it at a cheese plant and the arrangement was that we would build it on our cost. And once it performs, they will buy it from us. And so we borrowed as much money as we could to be able to afford the equipment is very expensive for us at the time. We’re a very small company. And by some miracle we put a very first system in place. We put that tank in place and my brother and I he’s my partner. We built that first system with our hands. We’re both engineers. Wow. Well, we use some help from local plumbers and local electricians, but we, we did the majority of the work ourselves. We’re trying to cut costs and make sure it works. And I’ll tell you one thing, that first system that we put online in 2004 is still working today.

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Antoine Walter:

So basically the question I was asking you, if you’re going to market it as a service, that was what you were doing from day one. Actually, you were, your first plant was a plant as a service.

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah, we had to do that because you know, it’s hard to sell expensive solutions, multimillion dollar solutions, if you don’t have the track record, but we believed in the technology and I saw firsthand what this technology can do. And that system that we built in 2004 is one of our best systems is still operating. And we take people there and we show them, it’s like our history. We show them that digester. I wish I could show you a couple of pictures, maybe at another time, but it’s you know, that, that initial setup was a service that we would put an in place, treat your wastewater, reduce your surcharge fees, get you in compliance. And that’s how we both benefits. And that worked out well.

Antoine Walter:

And when is the last time that you’ve been involved in, I mean, directly involve hands-on on the building of a plant.

Manaf Farhan:

So it’s been a while. Our company now is broken into divisions and the operations division, which is headed by my brother USR. He designs these systems and he has a team and they execute and they build them, him and I still interact on the design and some of the details of the 10,000 foot level for the design and the sizing and the layout, et cetera. And he takes the lead on the execution. And I do other things for the business, but personally, I haven’t done one of these in several years. I do miss it. When I go to see them, it’s exciting because it’s like, you know, seeing something that you’ve created so many years later, it’s just, you know, being done on a much bigger scale. Now it’s really exciting

Antoine Walter:

Well Manaf, we’ve made a good tour on that topic, I would have, you know, further question. But at some point I have to be a bit cautious of your time as well. I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

Don’t worry. In this last section, I tried to keep the questions short and ideally you will keep the answers short as well, but don’t worry. It’s always me who is going to make it much longer than I should. So if there’s anything you want to explain a bit more on the immature itself. So my first question is what is the most exciting projects you’ve been working on and why?

Manaf Farhan:

That’s a good question. So we’re working. One comes to mind immediately, we’re working on a bean plant. It’s a very large plant over a million square feet under roof, and they have several different products. It’s the highest flow that we’ve handled designed for upwards of 750,000 gallons per day, which is a lot of flow of onto these digesters. We’ve dealt with a lot of challenges in terms of getting the wastewater there and getting it to how we needed to go to the digesters and the layout and planning for expansion. And one of the best reasons I like working with that client and on that project is that they’re so excited about what we do and the technology and what we can do for them. It really feels that we’re a team. Those are the ones I enjoy the most. And, and those guys are just really, they’re nice people to work with. And they’re genuinely excited about what we can do to help them reduce their carbon footprint. And that’s why I really love that project.

Antoine Walter:

Are you allowed to say where that project is? Sure. It’s in

Manaf Farhan:

A Fairbault, Minnesota. It’s a Fairbault foods in Minnesota, which is about one hour South of 45 minutes, South of the twin cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Now I might ask you as a French man to tell me how to pronounce Fairbault. If you can look it up,

Antoine Walter:

I’ll check that. What’s your favorite part of your current job? I would say

Manaf Farhan:

Creating and designing better solutions and reliable systems, especially when we’re told it can’t be done. When someone tells you no way it’s not going to fit, or it’s just not going to work. And when we do this and we’ve make it work and they come to us and say, thank you, that’s very gratifying.

Antoine Walter:

Do you still get people telling you it’s not going to work even after 25 years,

Manaf Farhan:

There’s people out there that tell you that we haven’t landed on the moon?

Antoine Walter:

Sure.

Manaf Farhan:

It’s changing the mentality. You know, the wastewater industry is very old. It takes time to change and people have to see it to believe it. There are people who are believers in the science and the technology and, and when they see data and there are people who are just skeptical by nature and you just have to prove that it works

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Antoine Walter:

Well. You mentioned it’s an old industry. So the next question is going to look at the future of the industry. What is the trend to watch out in the water industry?

Manaf Farhan:

I believe sustainability is a big trend in the water industry. You know, reducing the carbon footprint, treating sustainably, reducing water consumption. And the other thing is automation. I think those two are in the next 10, 20 years are going to be at the forefront of innovation in the water.

Antoine Walter:

Actually, you know what? I warned you, I’m always the one to sidetrack, but know that you mentioned that to Mason. I was wondering when you were explaining how much of the resistance do you still have to overcome when you tell to industrials that you can have remote access. I mean, you, you gave the example that you could give me access from France to the blends you have in the States. Is it something where people are worried about or they get that it’s going to be safe anyways? So

Manaf Farhan:

A picture is worth a thousand words. We have that saying in English. I don’t know if you say it in French, but the best thing is when we’re at a meeting with a client and I mentioned automation on my laptop, I log onto one of our systems and I show them how it’s working. I show them the flows and the pH control and the temperature and the Biograph generation and the electricity being generated every second. And once they see it, you see the transformation in their eyes like, wow, this thing is real. And it works. And we do the design for the SCADA screens so that it reflects reality. So the operator can actually trace what they’re seeing on the screen with what’s happening on the ground. And it’s really neat. And I think that part of it is the great thing about having these tangible systems, these big, you know, actual system that are on the ground that work is that you can touch them and you can feel them and you can see them. And so that part of it, it’s easier now to produce once you’re, you know, once you have these systems working, it’s easier to convince people that these things work well. When at the beginning 25 years ago, that was a bigger challenge. There was just a vision that we’re seeing that we can, what we could do. And thankfully we were able to do it.

Antoine Walter:

What do you bring? Bringing transparency somehow? So you you’re breaking down kind of a barrier for people waste wastewater. It’s something they couldn’t grab seeing things on a screen which tell them it’s good, or it’s not good. I think it’s something which has no pun intended, but it’s digestible a bit, a bit better for them. I was wondering when you’re going to do that

Manaf Farhan:

Excellent reference. I like,

Antoine Walter:

What is the thing you care about the most when you’re working on a new project and what is the one you care the least?

Manaf Farhan:

The most important thing for me and for our team on these projects is to be prepared it’s to understand the depth of the problem or the situation and understand their limitations, understand their permit, limits, understand how they operate. So for us, the more information we have the better, because when we know something, we can prepare for it. So for me, obviously it’s important that you have buy-in from the client and that they’re committed, but we need to know what’s happening at their plant and their limitations. So we can custom design the solution that works best for them. The thing I like the least, obviously dealing with large corporations, there is a lot of politics and personalities, and a lot of times the politics part, I don’t enjoy too much.

Antoine Walter:

Okay. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it because you don’t name it on your website, but you have a picture, but it’s a, it’s an energy drink, not the one that gives you wings. The other one is it’s difficult to deal with such a huge customer, as opposed as I guess the dairy farm.

Manaf Farhan:

So here’s the thing. Everything has pluses and negatives. So when you talk, when you deal with these bigger corporations and they have teams and they have, you know, budgets and they have schedules that you have to fit, these things are good because they define your mission and what you have to do and your goals, but they’re also, they could be amazed. You know, when you talk about their EHS or when you talk about they’re all these departments that come and give you the review and what you have to follow. So it could, it could get complicated. We haven’t done dairy farm projects in over 10 years. We’ve transitioned now more to industrial wastewater treatment, food and beverage because of the need is much bigger there. But you know, I have to say at the end, Antoine people are people and I enjoy working with people and finding out what their problem is and helping

Antoine Walter:

That’s the positive way to summarize it. Do you have sources to recommend, to keep up with the water and wastewater market trends?

Manaf Farhan:

Sure. Yeah. I often go to conferences and I take part in sustainability forums. I mean, if I have to give you one, there’s a lot of good things, but maybe, you know, the water environment association, we, they have them in every state here in the United States, they have these seminars and that I participated in, you know, they they’re helpful. And obviously reading blogs and sites, websites that have updates with is helpful. What do you mean?

Antoine Walter:

Well, I was going to tell, you know, it’s refreshing because you’re not giving me the one that everyone gives usually, which is LinkedIn. I’m using LinkedIn a lot, but sometimes, and not something we think it’s good to to be to be a bit outside of kind of formatted environment and to good. But aside from what the algorithm tells you is interesting to you. So

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah, we use a lot, don’t get me wrong. We use LinkedIn and we’re on LinkedIn. But you know, there’s, there’s a lot, it’s,

Antoine Walter:

It’s refreshing to hear that it’s not your primary source because it doesn’t get me wrong. I mean, I love LinkedIn, no, some source of, of many stuff and men, but, but sometimes, you know, the algorithm has the shape of things. He, he loves a bit better than others. And so a very interesting topic can be buried just because it’s not in the right shape and something, which is yeah, arguably not, not of upper importance just gets pushed a lot just because it’s in the exit white shape, not doing any kind of LinkedIn shaming, it would be the wrong person to, to tell that. But yeah, that’s the question on my end. Would you have someone to recommend me that I should definitely invite to to be your follow up on that microphone?

Manaf Farhan:

Let me give that some thought. And I have email address and I can, let me ask if a few people want to have in mind would be interested. Your focus is obviously on wastewater, so I’ll keep that much.

Antoine Walter:

Well, my focus is on every cool story, which is around that. So it can be wastewater, but it can be really I had fun discussions with her, which had little to do with a, with a wastewater, but had to do with, with water as a broader topic. But anyone listening to that, it’s just I’d like to thank Jared, Jared Paul, which I’m mentioned as Paul, Jared, I’m sorry for that. So Jared, he was the one making the introduction and making sure that, that whole discussion we just we just had, so, yeah.

Manaf Farhan:

Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your time Antwan. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your interest.

Antoine Walter:

Well, thanks for that manner. And yeah. Talk to you soon, maybe in five years to check out if and how you became that leading technology for food and beverage wastewaters and here.

Other Episodes:

FREDsense: Revolutionizing Water Quality Monitoring with Biosensor Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 7 May 2025

Swirltex: Revolutionizing Wastewater Treatment with Bubbly Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 30 April 2025

Blue Foot Membranes: The Next Evolution in Water Filtration

By Antoine Walter | 16 April 2025

Echo River Capital: Pioneering the Future of Water Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 3 April 2025

1001 Fontaines: Engineering Sustainable Water Access Through Social Entrepreneurship

By Antoine Walter | 22 March 2025

Amazon’s Water Footprint: Tech Giant’s Quest for Water Sustainability

By Antoine Walter | 19 March 2025

Turing: The AI Revolution Quenching the Water Industry’s Thirst for Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 26 February 2025

Altillion: Pioneering Digital Intelligence for Water Asset Management

By Antoine Walter | 6 February 2025

Flocean: Pioneering Ocean-Based Water Solutions

By Antoine Walter | 15 January 2025

Botanical Water Technologies: Harvesting Liquid Gold from Plants

By Antoine Walter | 4 December 2024

The post How to Treat Wastewater in a Net Grid Positive Way while Mimicking your Body? appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

Michael holds a Ph. D. in Geography and builds upon a unique (and multidisciplinary!) skill set, making him a Global Water expert.

This episode is part of my series on Nature-Based Solutions (check it out )

What we covered:

How we used to close and now re-open the rivers in our cities for roughly the same set of legitimate reasons

How (spoiler!) every dollar invested in river restoration actually provides a four-dollar return on investment

The perks and pitfalls of semi-natural ecosystems in the heart of cities

How 60s ‘urbanization miracles’ became modern nightmares

The three new and updated reasons why people want to go to cities (and why that matter for businesses)

The blue-green movement that changes the way we do economy

How better technical understanding and digitization enables to engineer with nature

How Sponge Cities are a new level of urbanization and environmental engineering, although still being a vivid debate in society

How involvement of all stakeholders is crucial to building a blue-green infrastructure

How cognitive connectivity needs to be restored along with water rehabilitation (and how that connects to… Heidegger!)

How water needs to be presented in a fun and lively way instead of focusing on the negative reconnection

Why and how a ‘Water Incubator’ could turn the tables 

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Michael on LinkedIn

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Infographic: River Restoration

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi, Michael, welcome to the show!

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Hi Antoine. How are you?

Antoine Walter:

I’m really good and you?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Wonderful. Thank you. It’s a beautiful 23-24 degree early, early to mid morning right now, bright and brilliant with a bright blue sky.

Antoine Walter:

So that is somehow the beginning of your postcard that you’re sending from Buffalo today. Can you tell me something about Buffalo lemon? The name is already quite a story, but I would be interested to have your most crispy anecdote about Buffalo.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Buffalo is, you know, it’s a uniquely magical city in its own way. It has a tremendously interesting history. And one of the fun things about Buffalo is that in the late 18th century, when the city was founded, when people first came to this region of the United States, it was the, you know, the Western frontier at that point to be buffaloed meant to be tricked. So it has sort of a slang to it. And also there’s a, a fun, little bit about the name too, which is that. So the Ellicott family, they spoke a version of Dutch and people have been wondering about the name of Buffalo for years, you know, does it come from French well flu? And I think it comes from a kind of Dutch Flemish dialect, similar to sales. You know, the idea of posts, ELLs cause Brussels, you know, as we pronounce it in American English, it’s marshy land and Buffalo was cited at the confluence of a few creeks, the Niagara river, and it’s on Lake Erie where it turns into the Niagara river. And so it was on this marshy rich land. And it literally means I think, great place to live because you know, we’re water people. That’s what we do.

Antoine Walter:

So it’s fantastic because from your postcard already, we can tell that you seem to have kind of an inclination towards the meaning of things that this geography aspect of, of things, which we’ll uncover in a second. But it’s, it’s really, really interesting to see that from the very beginning of the conversation, we can feel that. And actually I have to say that, and don’t, don’t take me wrong here. But to me, you are an UFO in the water sector. I’ve seen you in many occasion across LinkedIn to be transparent, not physically, of course, in these strange times we’re living, but I’ve seen you in many discussions, many debates, many topics, and all the time you come with something really crispy or really accurate, really straight to the point. And I’m like, what’s your core expertise? Because it seems to me like there’s no barrier in the frontier. So maybe you have to test that today. But if ask this simple question, what is your core expertise? What’s your story with this water world?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Of course, I’ll give you the technical terminology and the plain language version of that, if that’s okay with you. So by training, I am an applied multi-disciplinary physical geographer. So I’m a combination of a scientist who has some degree of engineering expertise with a lot of expertise in geospatial analysis. And I’m also heavily imbued in the world of philosophy and theory. So, I mean, I can, I can talk intelligently about digital water or, you know, Heidegger or Kant or, or, you know, the Daoist approach to the teaching. And the whole point of that is from the academic perspective that I was trained in that’s, you know, I got, I have a PhD in geography from the university of Buffalo, from that perspective, it’s about seeing the whole picture of water because water is literally what connects all of us. It is the low point on the landscape and it is the low point in human society without water.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

There is no civilization. So in plain language and plain language, what do I do? I think about water people in cities. I think about what water does for people in cities and how we relate to water and how we can maximize the value of water to people in cities, through proximity to water. Because by being close to water, we are able to enjoy its benefits fully because Tobler is first law of geography is everything is related to everything else, but things that are close together are morally than, than things that are further apart. And that’s what cities do. They concentrate people and energy. And I think that water plays a huge role in that. And we know from history that it does. Does that make any sense?

Antoine Walter:

That makes a lot of sense, but still I would question how and why water. I mean, water is a key element as you alluded to, but why water specifically? I mean, you could have looked at, I don’t know, urbanization, or I’m not a geographer right now, so I don’t have a clever example to bring you, but, but why water

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Think about, think about what we need as human beings. We need water because it provides us with water to grow food and Oh, route by which to transport ourselves, you know, goods and provide services. So before we had the engineering expertise to build roads, say we used water because it comes down to friction. Cities grow up at the confluence of commercial routes and human routes. And that’s what water provides. It’s the place where things meet and cities grow there because that’s route, could we conduct commerce and live our lives? It’s the place where we are human. And if we go very far back, if you think about the temple of [inaudible] at a redo in old Sumeria, he’ll think of, think about, you know, the symbolism associated with N key. It’s the, you know, the cosmic spring, there’s this water symbology that’s replete throughout history. So it’s encoded into our beliefs and our mythology to water is the center of our life. That’s why water matters. It provides for us. And if we think about the, I think the word is ma on, you know, [inaudible] in Arabic means people and water, you know, [inaudible] kind so water people.

Antoine Walter:

It’s interesting because that makes for a smooth transition of course, into our deep dive for today, which is this, this element of water as a central element in the cities. But, but before diving into that, and that’s kind of a question I would somehow put in the fridge because we are checking it later on that I guess in our discussion, but everything you just explained makes a lot of sense. If you look at history and if you look at the early roots of water as a roots, as a source of life, as something you drink as something you use to irrigate your crops, but have the feeling that this central place of water kind of got lost within time and with the evolution. Because as long as we didn’t have anything, if you don’t have roads, you need to have a river. But if you have the roads, then river is maybe less important.

Antoine Walter:

The river needs to be clean. If you don’t know how to clean the water yourself. So I would say my feeling right now, and you’re going to correct me in the next hour, I guess, but my feeling is that water has been central at the very early ages of humanity. And maybe it lost a bit of the central place through evolution. And one could debate how much that’s an evolution and not a regression, but let’s start from those roots. You’ve alluded already to, to these elements that cities were built around water because it was a good proxy to replace the roots that were not existing yet. But is that the full story or is there something else? I mean, why Paris is next to the sea and why, or why London is next to the team’s river? Why New York is next to the the Hudson river? Is there a reason beyond the fact that a river is, is a good replacement for a route?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I think of rivers also again, it’s a very broad question and I’ll, and I’ll approach it, of course from a, you know, a geographic and a spatial perspective. So, okay. When I think about the phenomenology of a river, you know, what is a phenomenology it’s sort of the, it’s the experienced form of a river? Yes, of course we have the functional use values of rivers as routes. And there’s also the ecosystem services that rivers provide, you know, services like historically say in London, for example, a lot of those small rivers in London, this, the creeks rivers, tributaries of the Thames. They provided food for people. So people grew up and they built their homes and did business were where they were close to food. Because remember we couldn’t, we didn’t have access to all of the energy that we do these days. We didn’t have oil, Wells, natural gas, Wells, nuclear energy.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

So we had to stay close to our sources of food and fresh water and where the sources of food. And this is all theoretical and speculative. From my perspective, there’s probably some research out there that can establish it, but I, I’m not familiar with it. Places like, say, let’s look at London. Why London? Why, where London is? Well, some of the richest salmon runs occurred in those small tributaries to the Thames and you could go there and you can get food easily. So it’s about, it’s about minimizing energy, right? You want to be efficient. You want to be efficient as a person because any energy that you waste is energy that goes away from survival and reproduction. So rivers provide this geographic locus because there are edges, there are connection points and edges, and will we see connection points at edges? We see opportunities for exchange.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And in the case of the example of, you know, say fishing for salmon in the place that became London, that edge, that barrier was a way for people to easily transition from land to water and get services like food with it at the same time. Now I remember also, so I lived in Germany for a short while I lived in a, I lived in the North in a place called Brown shoe bike, and we visited a place called LAR in the hearts mountains. And one of the reasons that it brings this up is because rivers also provided power for people to remember before we had access to a lot of energy. As I mentioned before, you could use the force of flowing water to turn a wheel and that generated power. And so if you have a mining industry that needs to run a bellows, so you could smell it, you know, I think it was silver.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

That was being smelted. It was being sort of extracted from aura and Goss liar know, which was an Imperial capital. You needed the water there. So cities grew up around water because it provided power to there’s a reason for that. And perhaps I don’t know much about the origins of Paris, but I think that there may be similar reasons for that. Also. Now another place I lived in Germany to give another example of how to think through those geographically, of course, is I lived in a place called [inaudible] in Franconia and the mind river flows there by the Marion Berg festival to the fortress. And remember rivers provide microclimates also and that’s wine country. So if you are trying to minimize the energy that it takes to survive, thrive and reproduce. If you settled by water, that water is going to moderate the climate and perhaps even extend your growing season.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And then to draw that back home here to, you know, Buffalo, New York here to the Niagara region, Western New York and your Southern Ontario, Canada, we have these lakes too. So when, when you’re in, what do you know when you’re an Apple grower? We have a lot of fruit growers around here. We have some grape growers too. It’s a rich agricultural regions. There’s wine country here too. You want to, you want to kind of hedge your bets. And by living near water, water is a heat sink. It will moderate climate. And it lets you know that your fruits not going to freeze your grapes, aren’t going to die on the vine and you have access to the resources. You need to grow the grapes. You know, people, you know, how do you turn water into wine? You grow grapes, it’s still a miracle, right? So that’s a little bit more about cities and why they grew up by water. It’s about minimizing energy. It’s the low point. Like literally it moderates and moderates, the rates of change, the temperature of the area that you might be living in a growing food in. And it makes it easier for you to live there because it’s more certain you’re reducing uncertainty. So does that make any sense?

Antoine Walter:

Yeah, there’s a negative side to it as well. If you’re next to a river, there’s chances that the floods come from that river at some point, and you mentioned fresh water. Of course a river is a source of fresh water as soon as you’re the one which is really upstream, because if you’re downstream, it’s also a source of lots of waste from all the ones which are upstream on that same river. So how did humanity overcome those two risks. I would say?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

There’s a few different ways. I mean, one think about water sources. So people typically weren’t drinking water out of rivers because of the problem that you mentioned underneath, you know, we, we have this upstream, downstream problem, you know, who knows what’s going on upstream. You can’t necessarily trust it downstream, but people were using spring water. So people would find fresh water sources that were outside of the main STEM of the river. And that’s how they typically overcame the problem of drinking water. And you may see in a lot of older cities, a lot of a large reservoirs were built to capture spring water, which was then either fed by gravity or pumped later in time to the population. And that’s what allowed these cities to grow, you know, access to this clean water. And then rivers of course became routes for transportation and sources of food.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Now, flooding yes, of course flooding is a big problem, but we’ve overcome flooding at least historically in many ways that the easiest way to overcome flooding is you just don’t build on the flood plain. You just don’t build there. And we stopped doing that recently because we, you know, there’s sort of this human hubris, this this idea that we can do, whatever we want, wherever we want, we can make nature, submit to us. And the answer is, well, no, in the plainest terms. No, because we are part of nature, that’s it? We are part of nature. And how else do we overcome flooding in modern cities? Well, there’s a number of new methods that are being adopted. Now I’ll look at the older methods first and we’re talking about things like large scale mega engineering projects, you know, dam based, flood control, flood retention, reservoirs, something to capture the water before it gets to the city so that the city doesn’t get washed away.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well, that works, but there’s a lot of costs to that. Also, you know, we lose all of the ecosystem services of the river by simplifying the river system by disconnecting it from its flood plain, we lose all of the nutrient processing capacity in the floodplain. We lose, we lose a lot of the breeding and juvenile habitat for the fish species that we used to be able to out of rivers. And you know, we also, aren’t thinking long-term when it comes to those sort of large scale diversion and flood retention projects, we did them because we could do them because it made sense. We understood the mathematics, we understood the engineering and it worked, but we didn’t see the downsides. You know, it’s unified, functional, get one job done. Now that’s evolved over time. So what’s happening these days is that now we’re smarter. I’m optimistic.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

You know, we’ve gotten smarter as people, right? I’m a believer in humanity. I’m a, I’m a huge fan of human beings. Not just because I’m one of them, but because I like them too. So we’ve gotten smarter. And what do I mean by that? Well, think about the effect. Think about the longterm effects of developing our computational power. You know, we get integrated circuits and here we are 40 years later and we’ve got a digital economy. So what that means from sort of a scientific perspective and engineering perspective is we can now model natural systems with a high degree of resolution, you know, fairly accurately, no model is perfectly accurate, but digital modeling allows us to get a sense of how these systems behave without having to actually wait for the flood to happen. And because we have more complex means of understanding how these natural systems work, these rivers work, we can then regulate them in more natural ways.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

So the army Corps of engineers, the us army Corps of engineers, engineer research and development center called Burdick. They called Erdrich for short there’s. This initiative called the engineering with nature initiative. And it seeks to understand how to more effectively and of course, more efficiently, lower energy cost, right? How to use nature and natural methods to regulate floods. Now, what does this mean for cities? Well, I mean, cities are kind of complicated because we have all this sunk cost, you know, all the capital expenses of our infrastructure, which means that we might not be able to regulate rivers and cities in the most natural way, but there are some opportunities, especially in cities like Buffalo, where, you know, we’ve lost a lot of the urban core population. So to kind of recap that idea right there. Yeah. You know, we’ve gone from simple to more complex. And now that we have more complex ways of seeing floods of seeing rivers, we have opportunities to do a better job by working with in mimicking nature. The big term right now is biomimicry. So hopefully that gets some insight into the question.

Antoine Walter:

Yeah. Let me deconstruct what you just said, because there’s a lot in what you just explained that I really want to dive much deeper into this retaking of the natural side of things, but just before, you know, what, if you’ve been walking into CTS and not so long ago, you know, I’m not that old. And yet I recall when I was working through my, in my hometown, I had no clue there was a river there and currently are they’re working around that. And the river is, is back into the city. But that, that river has always been there. It just, it was, it was covered with concrete and that is not a single story. And what I like here to address is why at some points, did we hide the rivers? Why did we cover them? Why were the city growings on top of the rivers and not around the rivers anymore? Because before explaining how we recover from that, it’s important to understand why we went down that route.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well, the simplest answer I can think of is that we weren’t thinking about it and it was easier. And I can give you a good example from, from my hometown from Buffalo. So as the city was growing in the 19th century, so Buffalo was the Western Terminus of the Erie canal. You know, the Erie canal connected the Atlantic ocean to the great lakes, creating this extensive Seaway. Now the population was growing more rapidly than we could really figure out what to do with it. And people were getting sick. You know, you would get cholera, there were these terrible cholera epidemics, you know, and that kind of brings, you know, we can talk about COVID later if we wanted and how it might affect water, but to get back to the point when you have human waste and industrial waste going into waterways that are open, they are like open cesspools, their breeding grounds for pestilence.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And the quickest thing to do is to cover up and say, all right, this is now a sewer. And that’s what happened here in Buffalo. I think it was in the 1850s after some of the early 19th century cholera epidemics, the first sewer, the great interceptor sewer, you know, has this wonderful title, the great interceptor. It’s like something out of star Trek. It’s like something in space Sci-Fi, but you know, back then sewers were kind of scifi technology. They were new. We hadn’t known sewer since, you know, Roman times. So anyway, the great interceptor sewer was built and it just captured all that waste that was going down slope into the smaller creeks in the area, instead of putting it upstream, as we’ve talked about before it just put it right into the Lake and then it washed over Niagara falls. So that’s kind of how the process began.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And then later on, I can give you another example as the city grew further and industrialized, you know, another Creek called Skyjack would a Creek was just covered over with concrete too, because it just stunk. It was an eyesore. And the easiest thing to do is just to integrate these natural water systems, you know, Creek streams, rivers to integrate them into the emerging city sewer systems, because, well, we can’t have dirty water around people because it’s a public health hazard. So that’s kind of how it happened. People just had to get it done. Right. And remember, what do we always do? We do what we can do.

Antoine Walter:

What you mentioned was we were able to do it. So we did it. And I think that’s, that’s an important element because you know, I’m living just next to the Rhine river and the Rhine river has a cool history with that. It’s you mentioned the many function of the river, but one of the reverse function is also to be a border. And historically the Rhine river is the border between France and Germany. And the Germans found out much before, long before the French that they could domesticate Rhine river. And before the Rhine river was really moving from year to year and within a decade, it could move by like 100 kilometers to the East or to the West. And of course, if that river is flowing far to the East then France is much bigger. And if it’s flowing far to the West, then Germany is much bigger.

Antoine Walter:

And as the Germans were able to domesticate the river, they just domesticated it’s the further on the West side they could. And that way they gained kind of a 100 kilometer land on the French side. And that’s stayed that way for a long time, until there were some big flood events. And then everybody recalled that they were in. I mean, the rain was flowing here and the people were living here, but the Rhine is much stronger than houses or anything you can build in that brings you back to this kind of humility element. And that’s spectacular when we talk about the rain. But when we talk about the rivers within the cities, there’s also that elements, that there’s a good reason why a river is behaving. Like it behaves it’s because that’s a way to slow it down, to give it some chance, to bring some alluviums and to let them there and to settle and everything. And if you put everything into a concrete wall while the velocity is goes through the roof and the risk becomes much higher as well. So it’s somwhat arrogance as a human to say, I can domesticate nature and nature. Doesn’t like arrogance. At some points you have to pay the bill.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

There was always a price to pay. You will never, ever, ever be to the river. However you can dance with it. And that’s the change. I think we’re seeing in this world, you know, to bring it to a big thought, you know, we’re learning to work with nature and dance with our rivers once again, because as you mentioned, when we put our streams into concrete boxes, what we’re getting is we’re, you know, we’re getting, we’re getting convenience. You know, we’re optimizing our engineering design for flow conveyance. One thing that we can get done, but what we’re losing, what we’re losing is so much more to we’re losing the dynamism of the river. We’re losing its ability to, to refresh and restore the land, to return it to life. And what happens when we don’t work in cycles because nature works in cycles, just like we do when we take the cycles away and linearize a natural system so that we can predict it and control it.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

We think at least we lose its ability to regenerate and to restore itself. And that’s what we lost in cities too. You know, there’s this concept of urban stream deserts. Now it’s actually a more recent concept from a researcher, I think, out of Detroit, Michigan USA. [inaudible]. And That [inaudible] has been looking at the concept of urban stream deserts. Are you familiar with the concept of the food desert? Nope. Nope. Okay. So let’s hold the thought of a river has to run free in order to rejuvenate the land. Okay. So hold that for a moment. No, that there’s this parallel concept of the food desert. So when there’s food deserts in say an inner city where people just don’t have access to food, they don’t have easy access to the resources they need to survive. Now, when we don’t have rivers and cities, wait a minute, what did we lose when we put them into concrete boxes?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well, well, we lost a lot. We lost access to those critical all environments, those human habitats that help us to recover from stress because okay, there might be a river somewhere in the countryside, but if you don’t have a car, if you’re a person who is living in poverty or working hard or working class person in a city, you don’t have time to drive two hours to a pristine stream in a beautiful country park. You just don’t have that. Which means that you don’t have access to those restorative experiences. Remember a river, a river doesn’t just refresh flood, plain. It refreshes the mind. It restores the mind of people. And so a stream desert is a lack of access to a restorative blue water landscape. We talk about, you know, green scapes, but remember there’s blue scapes too. There’s river scapes. And we lack river scapes in cities.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

When we lacked those river scapes, we’re losing out our people are suffering because we need to be around ideal human habitat and that’s water and forests.

Antoine Walter:

Is there a way to quantify that? Where are the studies that try to identify what that meant? I,

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Yes, I cannot give you the exact data right now. I just can’t give it to you off the top of my head, but let me think about this. Let me dig, let me dig deep into my mind for a moment. Like I mentioned, I think it was the net pure all ski studies that really showcased that there was a lack of streams. And of course it was because of stream burial. Now there is some evidence and I was criticized. I was criticized for this during my dissertation defense because you know what, there’s just a lack of evidence, but I believe that there is a way to quantify this and here’s how I would do it.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And I’m going to draw it to a previous example. So it’s a preview, it’s some work that was done in the early nineties by someone named Alrich. So I’ll lay it out. And then we can talk about, you know, say a South Korea after that, if you wish, because there’s a good example of why that place works too. So anyway, to bring it back to how to quantify this, how do we quantify this? We measure human stress by tracking things like that, you know, monitoring. So we want to monitor people’s, you know, physiology you want to, we want to see how people respond to stress and we can measure various aspects of human experience, uh, cortisol levels, heart rate, and similar, you know, I’m not, I’m not a physiologist, so I can’t give you the exact numbers, but this would be a multidisciplinary study. And then we just examine people who don’t have access to rivers and cities.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

We examine people who do have access to rivers and cities, and then maybe we examine another group that’s living in the country by a river too. And just compare all that data. Of course it would be a wonderful big data project. This would be a huge data science project. So that’s how I would do it. I would look at people’s stress levels and markers for stress within, without rivers, and then say, all right, if, uh, if you have more exposure, if you have greater proximity and more frequent interaction with urban streams or rivers, you’re probably going to be less stressed. And if you’re less stressed, you’re going to be happier and healthier. And you’re going to be able to contribute to society. You’re going to be able to add more to the world because happy healthy people make a better world than what makes a great country and a great world, happy, healthy people who can work together and engage in more complex social behaviors. Because getting back to the idea of energy when you’re not happy and healthy, you’re spending a lot of energy on coping just to manage that stress and of having a river in a city like literally three or four blocks from your house. If you could walk there and it’s easy to go to, you can get there. And it, this is a form of environmental justice. Also, you know, think about the value of a river to environmental justice and social justice and cities. If you feel better,

Antoine Walter:

I fully subscribe to what you said. I really fully subscribing. And that makes a lot of sense in terms of scientific evidence and with the, the, these goal in mind to, to do good for the society. I fully get that. But if I take a bit of cynicism, you know, I’m pretty surprised that we were conscious enough as a society, that nature is so important and that’s the reverse switch important that we started acting on that. And I’m trying to see if there’s not a hidden agenda behind that, because to my understanding, you know, you shortly alluded to COVID and that COVID situation has been referred to a lot, like the first time in history that a humankind is putting health above economy. I dunno if it’s the first time or not, and that’s not my debate. My debate is rather it’s, it’s still surprising to us when we see that we are putting our wellbeing above other considerations. So when you see that movements that people bring back rivers into cities are, you’re just clapping and say, Hey, that’s awesome. Because finally we are putting wellbeing at the top of everything else. Or do you also see probably there’s a hidden agenda and while we can live with the hidden agenda, because what matters is that the rivers come back with their benefits? Well,

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well guess what, you know, there’s also, I don’t know if it’s a hidden agenda. There’s also evidence out there that restoring rivers and restoring water features in cities has economic value too. So I guess I’ll touch on three points here and I’ll organize these three points according to, you know, the Robert Wood Johnson model of community health. You know, Robert Wood Johnson, I think was from Johnson and Johnson way back when, and the model basically focuses on environment, economy and society. Okay. So when we restore rivers and cities, you know, the Buffalo river in my hometown of course, was, you know, it, it recently got some funding from a program called the great lakes restoration initiative. G L R I, the great lakes restoration initiative did work over the past. I think 25, 30 years, and a number of researchers, I think out of the university of Michigan found that in cities like Buffalo and Detroit, it adds $4 for every $1 spent on restoration work to the economy. So it has economic value. So there’s a one point that’s the economy

Antoine Walter:

4 on 1, just to be sure I get that right. I mean, every dollar you put in restoration of river gives you a return on money of four

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

One, and guess what? From the data that I’ve seen out of the HARTIG paper, it’s H A R T I G, and others HARTIG the data I’ve seen says that, yeah, the effects are concentrated in cities because of course proximity and yeah, you get four to one, four to one return on investment, and that’s a conservative number. You know, they’re being good scientists, they’re being good scientists figuring out, you know, what is what we can defend. So there it is. Yeah. You restore a river in a city,

Antoine Walter:

Elaborate to that. How do you get this return on, on money? Because it’s, it’s an impressive number.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Let me think about this for a moment. What are the mechanisms by which it, by which it works? Well? I think, I think the simplest way of putting this is that people need places to live, that they enjoy. So how does it work when you restore a river in a city? There’s lots of business development that occurs along it, because think about the effect of say tourism, you know, if you’re going to go to a place you want to spend time in a beautiful place. And a nice looking river is a great place to spend time to. There’s also a lot of recreational benefits too. You know, the recreational benefits of river restoration create healthier people. You know, so it’s opportunities for recreation and a chance to build public health and the numbers that we get come from, I think land value cause land value also goes up there’s economic activity, and then there’s the value of land by restored streams. So it’s a good idea. And I remember reading also, this is actually one of my LinkedIn posts from a while ago. It’s about the stream in Korea. The, how do we pronounce it properly again, the Cheonggyecheon stream. Yes.

Antoine Walter:

I’m glad that you tried it and not me because I was going to say something like Cheonggyecheon, but

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I always have to remind myself, you know, I’m, I’m human. I have to remind myself of how to say things. Sometimes I admit I am fallible, but I check my hubris at all the points. No, no. Hubris is always just going for the truth, getting back to the rivers and cities. Yeah. That’s how it works. Increases in land value. I think that the HARTIG paper looked at land value and economic exchange. And then of course, there’s the, there’s all these unquantified benefits. You know, we could talk about quantification of the benefits of restoring rivers all day long. There’s all the unquantified benefits of, you know, public health improvements. So just like we used to cover up rivers and cities to improve public health. Now we’re uncovering them and restoring them to improve public health because people feel better around rivers. They’re lower stressed. They want to be there because life happens in places.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I know we’ve been online for the past year, you know, staring at screens. But the fact is that life happens in person, in real places that are beautiful. And that’s what rivers give us in cities. So that kind of touches on the economic and social aspects of the Robert Wood Johnson model of community health. Then of course, there’s the environmental aspects. And that’s where we get deeper into the idea of say long-term value, you know, rivers, rivers that are able to function as rivers wish to, you know, as rivers, I’m not going to attribute intentions, but I’ll just say wish to, you know, rivers gotta be rivers, right? Just like the Rhine wants to be the Rhine. When they can function that way. We get a return of ecosystem services. So think about how as a river moves across its flood, plain, it deposits alluvium. And that’s where a number of biogeochemical processes take place.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I spent a year in a biogeochemistry lab a long time ago, looking at things like, you know, hexavalent Chrome reduction, you know, getting rid of toxic metals. But when you have a flood plain, that floodplain can sequester nutrients like phosphorus and provided an opportunity for plants to take up nitrogen. So when a river works, we have a functional wetland and a river. We can actually clean the water too. And that has long-term benefits because if you think about Lake Erie, you know, Buffalo of course is on Lake eerie. You know, there’s lots of nutrient pollution in Lake Erie, and I’m sure there is nutrient pollution and other places around the world, because think about, think of what runoff carries. So if we restore rivers in cities and around cities, they’re going to help us have cleaner lakes too, especially freshwater lakes. So the big, big long-term implication is that when we do a better job with rivers, we’re helping people, helping the environment long-term and helping the economy. It’s a good idea. You know, society moves in cycles one day, we cover it up the next day we open it back up. That’s just how it works.

Antoine Walter:

This opening back. And you shortly mentioned this current example of Cheonggyecheon. Maybe you can explain this a bit more in depth, what that mean, because I think that that’s a good example of the circle and how we are now opening back there that the rivers, but also that there’s not only positive aspects and that probably we still have metrics to improve there, but I’ll let you tell us that the, the story, which is fascinating,

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

The Cheonggyecheon, hopefully I pronounced the name correctly. I apologized to all my Korean friends and colleagues please. Correct.

Antoine Walter:

If someone is listening to that and knows to pronounce it better, we are really, really keen to have some feedback,

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Please. But, so it’s fascinating because I became fascinated with this because it’s a, it’s what I call a semi natural system. It’s sort of an augmented ecosystem. So after the Korean war Seoul is developing, you know, rapidly developing. And at that point, like in a lot of developing nations around the world, economic development is number one, you as a country, want your population to get richer because that’s a way to social improvement, develop your economy. So a lot of industrialization occurred, a highway was built over this stream that was encased in concrete and it served its purpose. You know, business developed industry developed. And then over time, the highway kind of became an eyesore and people, and it was not pleasant. It was not a pleasant place to be. And it was controversial. And I think that his excellency leave young buck. If I pronounce it, you know, he became, I think later the president of South Korea, it was controversial at the time.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

You know, w why are we going to take all this highway? Why, why take off this highway? That is the source of our wealth. You know, we need to connect people to jobs. We need to connect the North side and the South side of seals. So people can get to work and you don’t make money, but as it turned out, it just wasn’t doing the job anymore because the costs of that highway had outweighed the benefits. The highway was getting older, the area was polluted. And of course these costs accrue over time. So the choice was made. The choice was made. Let’s tear down the highway and restore the stream by creating this augmented ecosystem. This semi-natural system, the one that one that we put our energies into as human beings to make it work. So, okay, let’s gets done. And lo and behold, you know, everyone wants to live there.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

The land value goes up. It becomes a site for cultural activity. And what do people really want more than anything else? They want a great place to live, and they want to see each other and be with each other, you know, and this goes to, I think it was a, an a D so it’s an additional insight into why this works and how it works is provided by a report from a company called endeavor, endeavor insight, and the three key findings from endeavor insight on why people want to go to cities. What makes a city a great place to be where you want to do business, right? Cause endeavor deals with entrepreneurship and business. Okay. So businesses want three things. They want a high quality of life for their workers. You know, you gotta have a nice place to live if you’re going to perform at work, right.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Access to markets and an educated workforce. And so getting back to the idea of the Cheonggyecheon, so what did we just create there? What did his excellency leave? Young buck, take a, take a chance on and create. He created ideal habitat for people, a place that is low stress and beautiful, so that they’re happier, which means that they’re more economically productive. And then of course, you see the emergence of a number of businesses in the area of the restoration, and it’s this new kind of clean business. It’s sort of a in line with the digital transformation of water that we touched upon a while ago in this conversation. So that’s kind of how it works. It’s a change in how we do economy.

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned it to be a semi natural river. If you look at it just from an economical perspective, semi-natural is probably the best way you fully control the river and still it’s sufficiently blue and open for people to enjoy living next to it. But semi-natural has also its drawback, I guess, for instance, say if you have a concrete basement to your river, like, like in Chung and showing me you don’t have any kind of, of, of life developing within the soil of that river, because th there’s just no soil to that river. So is it kind of a compromise or is it the end goal to have like semi-natural nature?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

It depends on what you’re going for. Right. It’s always important to think about what your objective is like, what’s the goal. So the goal with Cheonggyecheon was to really make a better place to live in the heart of an industrial area and to help to reconnect the city. So, yeah, it worked, remember you define success according to your goals. And it also sort of proved a point that we can, we can create in partnership with nature, you know, a more natural systems that work. And in a lot of ways, it points towards a richer future of working with nature, not against it, because if we can do it in cities, if we can, if we can create replicable stream processes, you know, river that we know how it works in a more natural way, we can bring rivers back to cities and yeah, that’s, that’s what we’re doing.

Antoine Walter:

But th that element of working with nature is very important here, because actually we touched on flood prevention earlier on, if you have a semi natural river, you’re not really working with a river in terms of flood prevention, you’re working with the river because you bring back some blue and green elements to the city. You bring probably backs with fishes, you’ll bring back some nice area. And I think some analogies between this Cheonggyecheon river and central park in New York, and yes, it is a kind of nature, but now if it rains on that river, if there’s a high precipitations, well that river is just an open canal, if I may say so. So it’s still a concrete base. It’s not going to slow down anything. And I would probably even bet to the opposite. It’s going to going to speed up again, those velocities and all those steps. So is there a better way here as well, or is the compromise?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

We, and we have the solutions actually in hand, all we have to do is do them. So I mentioned earlier that we have a more complex understanding of how rivers work these days, and we have the technical means. The engineering means to create, you know, not just a semi natural river, but a, you know, a human augmented hydrology. Now, what does that mean? Well, what if we, instead of leaving everything to nature, we designed our own watersheds to be flood resilient. So because we’re running more complex models, complex digital models, and we have a digital twin of our urban semi-natural water system. We know what to do when the rain comes, and this is related to the whole sponges cities concept. We know how to manage that water in a complex and effective way to protect people and deliver ecosystem services in cities. So, yeah, it seems like on the surface, we might be running a lot of risks, but the more we do this, the more that we build with nature using digital regulation, digital modeling, we can do it. We can have the river and protect the city from the flood.

Antoine Walter:

That’s a difficult point actually, because it can be a conflicting point. I remember, you know, when I was doing my engineering studies, I was doing a study on the eco districts of Freiburg in Germany, which was one of the first in Germany. And the Eco district had one simple rule, which was, we have to be able to treat and cover as much water within that area than if it was just open nature. So you have to think of, of green roofs, but also of of just trenches in the middle of the road, where you would have a place for water to, to settle into, into B, to be treated. And this was seen as a huge sign of progress on one end. And on the other hand, as a, as a huge regression, depending on if you had your engineering goggles on, or if you had your environmental goggles on.

Antoine Walter:

And I wonder because I was working in the district, not when it was built and it was built probably 20 or 30 years ago. I wonder if mentality has changed so much that everybody now would agree that this is a way forward and that this is a progress. Or if that still would be a debate to see, you know, we have this engineering capabilities and it’s like giving up what we can just because we say, Hey, nature is, is stronger. Do you think that there’s a consensus around the fact that that is that’s the right way to do things? Or is it still the debates today?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I think that it’s still a debate, but the consensus is rapidly changing towards, yes, we can do this and we are doing it because it’s worth it. Right. I remember reading a paper a while ago that related to culture change in agricultural water districts in the Midwestern USA. And what really was preventing change was that practitioners people like, you know, engineers on the ground doing the work, the language of engineers on the ground, doing the work with water systems was not matching the language of the academics, you know, and the academic research engineers. So the problem wasn’t a technical, it was a problem of trust. And so as, as the water landscape in general changes the water management landscape, we’re seeing a greater willingness to adopt new solutions and it’s based upon communication and trust. The problem is not a technical problem. The problem is a problem of communication and getting along and saying, yes, let’s try this and feeling free to make a mistake once in a while, because as an engineer, you know, you don’t want to make mistakes because people’s lives are at risk, but the more that we try solutions and prove that they can work by doing them, as opposed to just modeling them, we will see these changes happen.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And what we’ll see, I think longterm, this is me just speculating. I can’t predict the future. None of us can. I think that as we begin to quantify the benefits of more natural, urban rivers, more natural flood control, control engineering with nature, better coastal defenses, too. I think that we’ll start to see an emerging consensus that says, yes, we can do this, and we’re doing it together because it’s worth it because the engineers now have the technical means and they can trust them. And they have the evidence to believe it. The folks on the policy side have the data, which says it’s better for people and improves the entire health of the nation or the city or wherever you are. And then of course we have a longterm environmental benefits. So if that makes any sense, I think that we’re going to see the consensus change over time, because we’re getting towards a world that needs to pay more attention to public health and wellness. Because of, as in an age where we don’t know what’s coming next, we’ve got to be smarter and healthier.

Antoine Walter:

There are two things that I like to go a bit deeper in what you just said. Let’s start with the first one. You, you shortly mentioned sponge cities, and that is a fascinating concept, but not everyone might be familiar with it yet. Can you just explain us what sponge cities are, and why they are interesting?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I’ll be really quick about it. My pals Shondra, DACA of DACA, Exxon would know a bit more about that, cause he’s done some of the engineering and design work in that area and maybe own Richards from, I think, I think he’s in Perth, in Australia, no way he’s in the South of Australia, but let me get to the point of the sponge city. So think of it. So what sponge city is really do in the simplest form that I can think and explain it as they replicate parts of the natural hydrological cycle. So instead of falling on impervious surface, you know, those trenches and gutters and roads, but water has a longer flow path between say the rooftop of a skyscraper and the natural channel or the semi artificial channel that we built. So a sponges city acts like the land and the watershed should act in a nature like way in a naturalistic way to create a more natural urban hydrological cycle. So the water works more naturally in cities, as opposed to just going, you know, at the speed of light, at the speed of water, into a drain and killing everything around it and washing everything away. That’s called the urban stream syndrome. So sponges cities soak up the water and release it more slowly so that we can have a more natural hydrograph that make any sense? Yeah,

Antoine Walter:

Of course, of course. And where is this concept applied the most? Because what I’ve seen is that there’s quite an intensive use of it in China, but what you described, I mean, what I was saying with the eco district in Germany, it’s not called spawn cities, but it’s the same principles. So maybe it’s just a terminology matter, but it’s this general idea of thinking the city to be kind of transparent. If there would be no city, there wouldn’t be a big hydrological difference. Is that a concept which, which goes everywhere or do you see some, some restrictions or is it something which you can do if you’re rebuilding cities and not having to assume a legacy?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

It depends upon how far you’re willing to go. I think that in China, if the government says, do it, get it done, people are saying, yes, let’s do it. And they have that kind of support. So in that situation where there’s strong support at all levels of government and the power to do so then yes, we can rebuild entire cities and make them like they’re from nature. Now in say the USA, it’s a little bit more complex, you know, there’s, there’s different levels of governance and people, people might want to be a bit more hesitant because we want to know more first. So what we’re seeing here is we’re seeing, I think phased implementation, we’re seeing green infrastructure, you know, one project at a time going to help to reduce, say storm water inputs to an urban river, but we’re going slower about it. And I think that that is a way to satisfy that need to have a better technical grasp because, you know, we want to protect people and help people participate in the process, more democratically because people want to have their input too, you know, and that’s, that’s, I think one difference.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

So the governmental structure controls how rapidly it might be implemented. And also think about the nature of different places. You know, for example, New York city, not every city is going to get torn down and rebuilt or rebuilt in a new way. Places that are heavily urbanized might just be better thought of is say, you know, sacrifices. You know, we’re not going to have more nature there. We will have central park, but we’re not going to have this fully restored naturalistic, urban hydrology. We’re just going to let that be. And that’s okay. But in other cities and I’ll, I’ll put in a plug for my own hometown in places like Detroit, you know, Buffalo and Detroit are ideal laboratories for experimenting with green and blue infrastructure. Now, why is that? Because in a lot of the old American industrial cities, we have these hollowed out urban cores.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

You know, a lot of the population shifted from the urban core to the suburbs, you know, between 1950 in the 1980s. So what that means is there’s a lot of land area left in these cities that sort of semi abandoned and what that creates is a great opportunity to try innovative green and blue infrastructure solutions. So, you know, you couple that with the known benefits of, you know, great lakes restoration and restoring watercourses along the great lakes, we’ve got a perfect storm for in water infrastructure in America’s old industrial cities. So, you know, I guess I’ll recap there, you know, there is the, get it done type approach that’s China let’s do it. And then there’s of course, you know, you leave Singapore, which is saying, we need water. This is how we’re going to do it. Yes, let’s get it done. So there’s that approach, get it done. Then there’s the, let’s take our time and see where it works. And we see that in parts of the USA and maybe parts of Europe also. And then there is this sort of subset of that, which is we’ll look here are these cities, there’s all this space available. What can we do because it’s not being used for anything else right now. And we want more people to live here, right? So those are three different kinds of approaches.

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Antoine Walter:

All these approaches, probably not to get it done approach, but the two other approaches, they have to draw on a certain level of water awareness. If people don’t realize the value there is it’s going to get hard to get their approval and to get them to understand and to support the initiative. So I think that’s why it’s important to tell what you said early on, which is like, you know, there, this impressive numbers, when you say that to every dollar, you invest, you, you get $4 back on return on investment because it’s seen, you know if not as a waste okay, it’s good for nature, but yeah. Nature who cares about nature? I’m really being extreme here, but, but that’s important. This awareness is really something which is, which is gold. I think it’s a topic I’ve mentioned quite a lot on that microphone already, but for many people, water appears at the tap and disappears when you flush and everything that happens beside that is not really important.

Antoine Walter:

And you know, there’s this almost urban legend, but I’ve heard it a lot from, from my father-in-law. So I’m going to give him credit that probably had happened. And he was mentioning that once when he was working with children and he asked them to draw a fish, and one of those just draw a fish in a square because for him, a fish was a, you know, Filet of fish from McDonald’s and it doesn’t have really a natural body or in any kind of natural shape of a fish. So I don’t know if this story is true or not, but to me that the water is a bit, same. If you never see it within your natural habitat, if you don’t see it in the city, if you don’t see it because you don’t have the occasion to go out there and to see a river, how it really should look like, then it it’s just, you know, a canal or a fountain or something like that. And that’s not a river. So how can we build this awareness?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Okay. Yeah, that’s a good point. And I appreciate you bringing that, that went up, Anthony. So the idea behind this is cognitive connectivity. So the connection of our lived experience our mind to water around us right now, I gotta be honest. Like we don’t really see water in our lives. I mean, I’m a sailor. I raised yachts out of the Buffalo yacht club and I I’m a swimmer and I grew up in water. So for me being part of the water is just life. But for a lot of people, it isn’t and disconnection from water is sort of a subset of nature deficit disorder. So we’ve lost this connection because we’re living in boxes ourselves. And I mentioned earlier that know part of, you know, my, my PhD work had a strong philosophical component. Well, let’s talk about Heidegger for a second. There’s this, this concept called [inaudible] the idea of in framing and just like you mentioned efficiency a square, why is that fish square?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

It’s because it’s literally been in framed by the industrial process of, you know, fish, hunting, fishing, and that child only sees fish in this way as a finished product. So how do we change that? And why do we change it? Well, we change it because it’s worth it as we’ve talked about earlier, but how do we change it for people? It’s about cultural change. Remember it begins with culture, it begins with communication and culture. And this was a thing that came up somewhere on LinkedIn. Oh God, what was it? Patrick? Decker of Xylem said something about how do we reconnect people to water? And it had something to do with one of Alex ethic, Alex Pacino’s posts, and there’s this sort of negative reconnection, which is, Oh, what if the taps run dry? That’s scary though. You know, that’s the negative. That doesn’t seem like a lot of fun.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Like I don’t, I don’t want to live in a world where there’s crew, there’s no water and it’s a parched landscape and we’re all dying. That sounds terrible, but there’s a fun way to do it too. And the fun way to do it is to have fun with water. So the way to do that is to bring people in connection with water, through say their devices, how do we present fun water scenes? Hey, you’re a person you want to go have a good time. We’re doing this thing by the water or on the water. We’re going to have a big party. And I know that there’s water festivals in very, in various parts of the world, you know, world water day is, is, you know, on the spring Equinox, the Vernal Equinox in the North. And why are we having event? It’s still cold? Why don’t we have water day in the North?

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Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

You know, in the middle of summer when it’s hot, when everyone’s taking a vacation and use that sort of cultural mechanism to say, remember, if you want to hang out on these hot days, this is where you do it. And it’s a good time. And you had a great time with people. So how can we advocate for water through cultural narratives, remember stories, shape belief, dictating action. Our stories. Tell us how to live. Just like Songlines in Australia. So what are our Songlines for water? And how can we tell new stories? How can we tell new and positive stories that will reconnect us to water? Because that’s where it begins. And it begins with children and it begins with fun because between the carrot and the stick, the stick being, Oh, there’s no more water coming out of the taps. And the carrot saying water is sweet.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

The carrots a lot sweeter. I think that fun is a great motivator for change. Having a good time because it’s positive and people become invested. Now, people follow fund, and if we make water fun and we make it relevant to people’s lives through helping people to reconnect through all of their various social media, through all of their digital devices, through all of our action activities. And we tell stories where people can see themselves in the water, they can see themselves as part of a water landscape. And as somebody who cares about the water, then we will see a sea change, you know, no pun intended, but we’ll see a sea change in water because water will become relevant again, to people’s lives in a positive and meaningful way. And then from there we get major change. I suspect just one idea.

Antoine Walter:

What’s you role in that story?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I’m working on it. So I’ll tell you. So I realized when I completed my, my PhD, when I finished my doctorate, I defended my dissertation. I realized that my goal is to do something about this, right? Because I’ve seen too much sickness and too much sadness in this world. And I’ve seen too much dirty water and unhappy people and just cities falling apart. And so what I’ve been working on lately, as I’m working out a number of ideas to kind of create a, you know, a water incubator, not your classic water technology incubator, but you know, an incubator that focuses on solving water problems in the city of Buffalo, how do we help our local sewer and water supply systems? How do we help them make cleaner water? You know, how do we, and then how do we provide the arguments and the data and the reasoning and the fun of course, to say, let’s all get into this together.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

So that’s, that’s what I’m working on right now. I actually wrote up, I put this idea out there called water 31, and I’ll be honest, you know, water 31 is a really rough idea. It’s a really rough idea. And it’s probably not going to keep being called water 31 because you know, it needs a better name. It needs something that’s more, more fun and more functional. But the basic idea is that we’re not solving water problems just for making money. We’re solving them for social reasons and for environmental reasons. And we can prove that over time. Another thing I’m working on is a project that I am tentatively calling the waterways project, and this is all stuff that’s going on, kind of behind the scenes of my own life. But waterways project is really about telling the story of water through the story of people, because how do you connect people in water?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well, you connect people in water in stories because again, you know, stories, stories, shape belief, dictating action. So the waterways project is related to themes such as social justice and freedom. So there’s a, there’s an underground railroad. You know, the underground railroad was a path by which enslaved people found freedom in the United, in the United States. They would go from the South, through the North, into Canada, where they had freedom. And you know, I’m a free Mason too. So I’m all about, you know, we are human beings. We are one people and we live for freedom and free will. So the story that connects water to people through the underground railroad and freedom is about the Niagara river at Niagara falls, because remember just like the Ryan between France and Germany, the Niagara river was literally the last crossing to freedom for enslaved people, seeking freedom.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

And as soon as you got across that river, you were in Canada. And so the water becomes a context and it showcases just how important, how important water is in our history and in the struggle for freedom and justice in our world. That’s something that I plan to work on more in may and that one’s called the waterways project and it gets to some of that positivity in water. And it creates that context for people to become aware of water. Because if you put water in people’s faces and say, here, look at water, look at water. They’re going to say, why should I look at water? And I’ll say, well, look at this story about people and see what water did with it on the outskirts. You know, don’t be direct about it, create a context, the contextual value of water. So that’s what I’m up to my goal is to drive transformational change in the water world over time. I want to solve water.

Antoine Walter:

That’s an awesome mission. I’m really interested in, into your, your concept of, of Water 31 hour, of course, the waterways project as well. But you mentioned that that’s coming later, so I’d have to stay awake to see it happening, but you, you mentioned water incubator and I liked you to just, you can just elaborate a bit more about that one, because that’s really intriguing to me. How does that translate in practical steps?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well, in practical steps, you know, the first step is to develop the idea into a, an operational idea, an idea that could be done. So we’re to, so how do we do that? Do you have, I D you know, I don’t really have a concrete example, but you know, maybe I can have a parallel example. So here’s another way of thinking of it. Where did Silicon Valley come from? Did it just come out of nowhere overnight? No. Back in, I think the 1960s and, you know, I don’t have all the names, correct. This is a story I heard from a gentleman named Tom Khaleel from Schmidt futures years ago. I have my, my boss sent me to San Francisco to attend a meeting with you know, citizen schools when I was doing education work. And he told this great story about how, how do you do development?

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Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Where did tech come from? And so Silicon Valley was built by concentrating people, people, money, and ideas. So that’s the first real step. You got to take people who have ideas and time and put them together in proximity. And in this case, you know, I would be focusing on water and then you’ve got to give them problems to solve and the creative energy and the support to get it done. So that’s how incubation works. You walk in the door and say, I’ve got a water idea. And then we say, all right, let’s figure out what problem we’re solving with it. Is it a problem that is a problem that has economic value? Is it a problem that has economic and social value? Does it have environmental value? And then how do we create the right kind of organizational structure? You know, what kind of structure is going to get the job done?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Is it a corporation that’s for-profit, is it a w you know, in the United States, we have these things called benefit corporations, I think called certified B corporations. You know, I’m not expert in this area, but I’m learning, of course, is that a company that isn’t trying to make a ton of money, but you know, wants to be solvent charged for its services or for its products, or is it going to be, you know, a nonprofit organization? So those are the three vehicles that we have, you know, I got a water idea. I’ve walked in the door. All right, well, what problem are we solving? Okay, we’ve defined a problem. We declared definition for the problem. Then what’s our vehicle. Is it going to be for profit, maybe some profit, like, you know, B corporation, or is it going to be non-for-profit and how are we going to do that?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

That follows the typical model of say technology incubators. Then after that comes the really hard work, which is just figuring out how are you going to get the idea funded? Where’s the funding going to come from? Do you go to venture capital? Because venture capital, from what I know typically wants, you know, they want growth, they want massive growth. They want to make profit. That’s okay. You know, that’s part of the deal. We were all in the world together, or is it something that’s more innovative? You know, are we going to use something like crowdsourcing? Are we going to, you know, provide crowdsource investors, if that’s the right word for it, are we gonna provide them with, you know, just feel good? You know, I’m going to put some money in because I want to see this work. So that’s sort of like a, I guess, a passionate investment that there’s equity investors, you know, people who put money in who want a stake in the company that there’s people who are putting in for profit, you know, they’re, I think they’re I forgot what they’re called, but there’s similar to venture capital, but on a smaller scale.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

So there’s that, you know, we have our for-profit model with venture capital. We have say a hybrid model, which involves some, some degree of crowdsource funding. And then of course, there’s the, you know, the other end of it, which is sort of this government funding, that’s called push the idea of push investment is that we’ve decided that it’s the right thing to do. We know that it’s worth it, or we, we agree that it’s worth it. And we’re going to put money into that. And so money for that push investment can come from government sources. It can come from private foundations and other things like that. So we’ve gone from the idea to the problem, to the vehicle, and then the types of funding mechanisms to get the vehicle, the vehicle off the ground. And then after that, we just have time and trial and error, because the only way to successfully solve water is going to be to go into the field and see if it works, you know, and why do it in a place like Buffalo, New York, because there’s opportunity here because it’s inexpensive to live here and we’re sitting the great lakes are 20% of the Earth’s fresh water, and they could use a hand being cleaned up and taken care of because there’s a lot of value there.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

So that’s kind of how I’m approaching it. Hopefully that makes some sense.

Antoine Walter:

That makes a lot of sense, too. That, that gets me really curious about the next step. So whenever you hit your, your next milestone, I’d be really, really happy to take that as a, as a deep dive, because that sounds really fascinating. I’m working on it, seeing the birth of something, you know, it’s really interesting.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Think of it like this. Elon Musk wants to take us to Mars, right? Get us to Mars. Well, when we go to Mars, I want to build a home there for us, and if we could figure out how to take care of our water on earth, remember water means life. Water means food. Water means functioning ecosystems. This is the big, crazy, this is the craziest idea. And actually this is the totally crazy pie in the sky idea. If we can figure out water on earth, how to manage it with nature, like nature, using whatever technologies and tools we can discover and create, we might have the beginnings of a way to not just restore our fresh water resources, like the RLC and the great lakes on earth. We might have the beginnings of a way to Terraform parts of Mars from the ground up. Remember terraforming. Isn’t just huge geoengineering projects. It’s little stuff too. Like how do we create a small watershed? So that’s the big, crazy goal. Elon Musk wants to take us to Mars. I want to give us a home. We get there. That’s crazy. But

Antoine Walter:

Think of it, because right now all the inspiration about Maurice is to find water and Morrison were looking for water and Morrison. We don’t really care about water on earth, which is kind of ironic when you think of it. But I like your positive way to look at things, which is okay, we’re looking for water on Mars and you’re looking at ways to make something positive out of it. So, yeah, I think that makes an awesome conclusion to this deep dive. If it’s fine with you, I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Oh yeah, of course. I would love to. Thank you so much.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

The rules of rapid fire questions are always the same. I try to keep the questions short and it would be awesome if you keep the answers short as well, but don’t worry. I’m not cutting the microphone. If there’s something you want to express, you’re free to do it. So my first question would be what is the most exciting project you’ve been working on and why?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Oh, the most exciting project is this Seminole water, 31 idea. And why? Because I’m passionate about it and it gets me jazzed. That’s why,

Antoine Walter:

What’s your favorite part of your current job?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

For part of my current job is that I’m inventing a job for myself. You know, I’ve been looking for work for wow, almost two years now. And I realized that I just have to invent a job for myself. And so that’s what I’m doing. It’s great. It’s scary, but it’s great.

Antoine Walter:

No, some creativity in it. I can get it that it’s scary, but you know I think that’s something I’ve already discussed several times on that microphone. So I’m not going to bore too much everybody about it. But you know, when I was studying, when I did my water studies, to me, it wasn’t an option to create your job. It wasn’t an option to create anything. It was just, you know, you follow what’s what’s existing. And to me, it’s also been refreshing to see people which are actively carving out their path. So yeah admiring all the, the, the people that do that to activities. So I’m admiring you for that. What’s the trends to watch out in this industry. It’s

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Really three things I think that we should be looking at in the water industry in general. A big one is diversity in water. Now that’s important because new people, new ideas, new ways of looking at things, new solutions to bigger and more complex problems. So diversity of water is one. And while lead, Corey has mentioned that before also of course, it’s keep an eye on digital transformation, you know, just keep, keep an eye on what’s happening with the digitization of the water sector. You know, as we see more internet of things, solutions roll out and we see more digital twinning of our water systems, I would expect to see a lot of growth in that area. And beyond that, I would really focus on things like looking at control systems, you know, an optimization of our water systems. And then let’s see, what else was the third one?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I was thinking of off hand. I brought, I wrote down some notes beforehand. Oh yeah. Here’s another one. This one’s kind of a fun one, forensic hydrology, you know, looking at the past hydrology of cities. And why would I look at that? Because guess what, as we can do a better job of bringing rivers back to cities, we’ve got to know where those old watercourses were, because guess what, why reinvent the wheel? If we can just open up an old watercourse and rewater it, half the work’s done for us. So the three are diversity in water, digital transformation and forensic hydrology.

Antoine Walter:

Sorry, I have to sidetrack here. Is there a dichotomy between these elements of digital transformation, which brings internet of things which brings, I mean, name it, there’s all this buzz words, machine learning, artificial intelligence, whatever modeling to a certain extent. And does it build for a dichotomy between that and the fact that you want to put the human at the center of everything and to tell stories and to, to see the connection between the human and the water. So somehow we want to, to find back this millennial old contact we had between water and humans and on the other ends, a tool for that is digital transformation. Is there a disconnect or is it something I’m missing here?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Our tools are only as smart as our people, so they go hand in hand the way for us to reconnect with nature, to reconnect with water is, I guess I’ll use the word paradoxically or ironically again is through those devices. You know, the only way to get there is through reconnecting through the digital, because it helps us to see the bigger picture, which we can’t see in our own limited perception. You know, all we see is the water coming in and out of the tap, but with digital, you know, with digital models, we can see more. So I think over time with that, we will see a greater, a greater set of opportunities to reconnect with water because we work with our tools as one system, you know, think of it like the analogy is human augmentation, you know, using digital devices to enhance our minds, to enhance our memory, to enhance our functioning. Human is the human side of it. And then there’s this other idea of ecological augmentation and water is a big part of ecological augmentation, you know, using drones, digital tools to create. This is another crazy idea, cybernetic ecology, you know, in ecology that is composed of humans, machines and nature, because that’s, that’s the future. We are one system

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Antoine Walter:

It’s interesting. I can see a trend with my guests to come with very fascinating topic like that one at the very end of of conversations. And then I know that if I, if I embark on that route, then we’re, we’re good for another hour on that same microphone who who came in the rapid fire question with the concept of blockchain within within sustainable development and blockchain with the carbon footprint. And that’s a fascinating topic, but if I enter now your concept of cybernetic, ecology, I mean, it’s never ending. So let me put them on ice and we probably have to follow up at some point with that one. I’d love to, let me bring you back on track with my, my rapid for questions. Do you have sources to recommend to keep up with the water industry and the trends

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

I’ve been really focused on academic reading, but I would say you don’t check out Smartwater magazine. I had a really good experience publishing an article, a Smartwater magazine, and also keep an eye on, at least in the USA, keep an eye on what’s going on with the Biden administration. You know, there there’s been some recent talk of investment in water, and I think it’s going to be a positive thing. So look at those two things. And of course, you know, check the academic journals too, because that’s where all the cutting-edge stuff.

Antoine Walter:

Yeah. Actually $111 billion investments in water infrastructure. I mean, I hope that’s an example of how people want to go out of this, this full COVID period, because probably investment is going to be an important part of it. And if we can leverage the opportunity to invest into our water systems, then probably it’s a win-win. But again, if we enter that route I’m sidetracking you again. Last question. Would you have someone to recommend that we should definitely invite on that same microphone?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Yes, I do. I I say, is it okay if I give a few different recommendations? Of course. Well, let’s see who comes to mind. Right, right now, if you haven’t already talked with them, [inaudible] is a passionate man for his work in India, dealing with, you know, dealing with wastewater. And so he’s somebody who honestly, he’s gold. He knows the scene and he can talk about it intelligently as an expert from, from the Indian Waterworld. Then of course, there’s there’s two folks in Australia that I can think of. There’s there’s Olin Richards, who is somewhere in the South of Australia. I can’t remember. I think it’s, I think he’s near Melbourne. And then there is a Craig from Perth who dealing with some innovative sort of water for stormwater. And then there’s Denise, Denise, either hall or mall from South Africa then there’s Oh, what’s, what’s his name? Oh, I forgot his name. Oh, he’s an. He’s a guy. I had a conversation with him about blockchain and accountability for water, you know, a few weeks ago. Is it Viro, Sean, you have [inaudible] whose name was last time? I can’t remember who is also from South Africa. Vira Sean would be an excellent followup to Nicola on the whole blockchain water accountability type talk. It sounds like I have a nice schedule for the next week. Awesome.

Antoine Walter:

Well, my last question if people want to follow up with you, where can I redirect them?

Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer:

Well, the best thing to do is just, you know, get ahold of me, get ahold of me on LinkedIn. I took it Easter break, but I, I regularly check LinkedIn or I’ll, I’ll give my email address and people can feel free to email me if they wish, you know, the truth is Anthony. I love to talk with people. I love, I love having conversations about water and all the intersections of water. So please, I encourage people to talk and I always have, I always have the time of day to talk about water. Awesome. That makes for the best conclusion there is. So thanks. Thanks for your time. Thanks for all the valuable inputs that you’ve, you’ve shared this today. And I think we have some follow ups to schedule in the future to follow your ventures and to probe a deep dive into this, this topic of of augmented ecology, whatever you want to call it. But it’s really interesting. Well, I’m honored and humbled that you invited me to this interview and it has been a tremendous pleasure, Anthony. It has been a tremendous pleasure to have this conversation, and I certainly hope that in the near future, we’ll follow up again and we’ll talk further because there’s a lot of work to do you don’t sir.

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The post What is the Best Way to Make Four Dollars out of One? appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

The Women in Water and Sanitation Network is an active ambassador for gender equality, connecting and empowering female professionals, expanding women’s career opportunities, and increasing their visibility.

This episode is part of my series on the UN SDG 6 and the path to reach it. Check it out!

What we covered:

The societal patterns we all grew up with, that might explain the 83/17 gender rate we experience in the Water Industry

How role models might be the best way to break those patterns, and how this starts with visibility

How regulations and strong incentives might be the only ways to overcome the gender imbalance

How networking leverages our social nature to bring the necessary support to every woman water professional to achieve herself

How the dream to break down gender barriers in water and sanitation might only be one generation away

How the full talent pool (regardless of gender considerations) will be needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Ulrike on LinkedIn

Visit the Women in Water and Sanitation Network’s Website

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Infographic: Women in Water

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi Ulrike, welcome to the show.

Ulrike Kelm:

Hello. Thank you very much for having me.

Antoine Walter:

I’m very happy to have you, and let’s start new with our good old traditions. I love to start with the postcard, which is kind of funny when you think of it, because I’m the French guy calling someone, which is not French in France, but you are right now in Paris. So can you give me a postcard from Paris?

Ulrike Kelm:

Oh, and this, this very moment. It is a gray sky, but actually it’s close to April, but this morning it was sunny and beautiful. Now it’s gray. It will rain soon. And I hope that after that we will have sun again, but well, anyway, this helps not much when you are fighting to be insight to the current situation,

Antoine Walter:

Somehow even better. You’re not tempted to go outside because it’s not too sunny or, you know

Ulrike Kelm:

Yeah, yeah. That, that was actually the problem. During the past weeks that people were really happy about spring weather and gathering outside. And then we could see the bat numbers that were raising and giving a very difficult situation to all of us. So we have to be patient sitting inside and hoping that everything will be soon over.

Antoine Walter:

So I’d be interested to understand how your path brought you to Paris. And actually you have kind of a twofold path if I might say so you are on the same time, a professional of the communication world and you are of course, a professional of the water world. So can you swiftly take us through your, your steps?

Ulrike Kelm:

I being honest, I wouldn’t say I’m neither nor my idea was when I left school was actually to save the world to make everything a better place. This is the very normal wish of someone who has no clear professional idea. So I would just thought like, I want to do something international. I want to travel. I want to meet people from different cultures and I want to make this world a better place. And so I started with studies on international relations and this brought me to economic. The economics fair and I worked on social security, which I felt was absolutely key for societies to propel into a policy future. And then after a while a friend told me something about water and I was like, what, what are we have water? What do you mean? And then it turns out that water is everywhere it’s important and any subject you can think of.

Ulrike Kelm:

And so this was really very welcoming for me because I couldn’t really make my mind up of be working on this fair, working on that, being a specialist on development studies or on economic studies or on gender issues or on whatever. So I found out at water was everywhere. This is a cross cutting issue. That’s that buzzword here. So it’s everywhere. You can find it in any subject you wish to work on. And then I found out that communications does exactly the same without being an expert. You can work on all the different topics because as soon as you require experts, you have them at your hand, you train them how they can speak in public, or you publish with them a book, a report, you film a documentary movie on specific subjects. And as soon as you require some deeper insights, you always call the real experts who studied the respective subject.

Ulrike Kelm:

So I think with water and communications, I really cover my broad interest of being everywhere with everything and involved in everything. So this is actually my, my motivation and how I came to Paris. Actually, I started off in Latin America, working for the German development corporation sector, came back to Europe for an assignment for the GIZ working for the international for an international conference. When I got involved in the policy processes, then I went back to Latin America for another assignment. Then I got another job in the United nations working again in shaping policy processes, working for the cause, like advocating for the topic on water and sanitation. This is where we started off the campaign on a sustainable development goals, implementing the sustainable development goals. And then I went further on to work for water utilities, also pushing them into the policy processes, advocating for the cause of safe water and sanitation management. And after that, I worked for the international water association doing exactly the same, but for different cause working for individual water professionals, pushing them into the sphere of international relations, international networking and getting the message out. So actually, and this brought me at the end to Paris, let’s say like this, I moved around following the jobs

The double skillset of Women in Water

Antoine Walter:

Actually still, I see that as a double competence somehow, you know, having this this communication and in the water elements and actually what you said at the very beginning, your friends telling you about water and you thinking we have water. What are you talking about? It sounds to me like as an industry, as a, as a sector, the water words still has much communication efforts to do so that the public opinion gets it, that a there’s the sustainable development goals that, and beyond all of that, there’s an industry which is there to, to provide us with, with drinking water, into, to sort out our wastewater. Is it still an open challenge?

Ulrike Kelm:

Of course it is a challenge and it always depends on whom to your talk to. So my friend talked to me and I’m from Northern Germany while we have excellent water coming out of the tap and the wastewater flushed away into the wastewater system being cleaned up, the rivers are clean. Now we can swim in rivers. So for me, water has always been like, yeah, it used to be polluted, but now it’s clean people do it. It’s fine. I didn’t spend much thought about what is behind all this process of doing so, but I have worked and lived in developing countries where you have water shortage for days where you don’t have a running water in your home that you have to store water and Dick basins on the rooftop or in your patio where you cannot shower. But you just have the little, how do you call it?

Ulrike Kelm:

Like a little cup, which you can water your body and then soap it up and then water again. And everything is cold. You never I’ve got warm water. So I experienced this, but it’s of course when you’re from a rich country and from a middle-class family, you think like, Oh yeah, that’s fun. That’s exciting. But you never think about what it is to really live with this every single day of your life without having changes on. I just found it always very complicated to where to drink water because you couldn’t drink the water coming out of the tap and certain countries. So all these things, but it’s, it’s a luxury for when you just think like, Oh yeah, I experienced this and I know how it is not, I don’t know. I experienced it. I watched it, I got my awareness got raised on this, but as soon as I got home, I forget because I don’t have this feeling.

Ulrike Kelm:

But then I talked to my parents and my parents are actually world war, second world war refugee children. So they know exactly how it is to carry the water home and to walk without shoes and to carry the water. And when I reported back my experience, I made abroad in difficult situations. My parents said, Oh yeah, we know this. And then they started telling their story. And I thought like, wow, it’s just one generation away that I live in pure luxury and health and without any problems at all. And they experienced the absolute opposite. And so when this friend raised this topic, water is an issue that is discussed worldwide, should be raised more on the international agenda to make it happen on the national and local levels. And you really start thinking like, yeah, how can I contribute to this? What can I do?

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Ulrike Kelm:

I’m not an engineer. I don’t know how to do with chemical stuff. I can count until 10, but I cannot calculate things. So, so these was my situation. And then I found out, but yeah, that’s more than just really be working on the ground. You can pave the way to make things happen because it’s all different parts of societies within a local area or globally that are involved. It’s the users, it’s the decision makers. It’s the public authorities, it’s communities that are involved. It is cultural. So there’s so many ways of getting engaged and raising awareness on this topic. And usually when you do not have to think about it, it means like everything is fine. But as soon as you have to think about it, you know, that things are not doing well.

Antoine Walter:

I’d like now to take it to your, your role today. You know, you’re chairing the women in water and sanitation network. And your mission States that you aim your members to become agents of change. So what is the change you’re aiming at here? I think it’s now besides the topic of water, if I get it right, there’s a change to happen inside his industry. And it has something to do with the women in water, right?

Ulrike Kelm:

Yeah. Well, when we think about women award or we can see them, their role two fold, one is they as users. And usually they are the ones who care for the family, for the households who have the primary burden for looking after the wellbeing of the family members. But the other one is they also have jobs. They work, they are workforce. So what a mind that work women and water and sanitation network does is we concentrate on the workforce on the people who studied, who learned profession and to work in this profession. And we want them to be visible. We want them to be xan equal member of the labor, how you call it labor society. Can we save it of yeah. Of the labor pool? We want them to be equal. We want them to be seen. We don’t want them to be hidden away.

Ulrike Kelm:

We don’t want our women to be shy or to be disencouraged. We want really to encourage them to show ways of, um, professional development, how to achieve, uh, professional goals, how to find role models, et cetera. So we do this actually by first of all, by meeting. So we meet we network. When you ask our members what they want. They always say networking. They want to meet like-minded people from the same background or from a different background, but working on the same topic on water and sanitation. So this is really the first thing they all want. And what we then do is we engage with them. We train them, we support them and trainings and we support them and learning, how do we do this? We have a, for example, a series. Well, I think I have to say we are a young network we’ve been around for two years.

Ulrike Kelm:

So I cannot really talk about a big history. So we have been doing so far a series of engaging talks of meet and greets where people can just meet now online, due to the pandemic, but it really works well where they meet, where they find themselves together in small meeting rooms and they can exchange on topics. They are interested in. This helps them to learn from each other and also to week, this helps all of us to influence. The other thing that we do as an organization is that we partnership and we cooperate with other organizations. So this is why it’s important that we’re not just a loose group of women meeting. Sometimes we are an organization. So this means like we can be addressed by other organizations to cooperate on certain topics. For example, we are working on a report on women in the water sector, a professional women in the water sector. So we got approached by another organization and international organization to work on this report. And we can forward this call to our very knowledge for membership. And then we have our expert members contributing to this report. So this helps us to shed light on, on the female workforce and the sector. And this helps us to advocate for the cause to advocate for female workforce in an unfortunately very male dominated sector,

There are only 17% of Women in Water

Antoine Walter:

Actually to that specific point, you know, when I was preparing for our discussion, I just had a look at some statistics and it turns out that in the water sector, there are less than 17% of women, which places us slightly better than the taxi drivers, but we are lower than the clergy, which is crazy. When you think that in some religions, it’s simply forbidden to be in the clergy, if you’re a woman, but still there are more women in clergy than in the water sector. So is there any kind of explanation to that? Or would you have a feeling about that?

Ulrike Kelm:

Being honest? I don’t know. I think it’s a cultural thing. It’s we grew up on certain patterns that we separate boys and girls, uh, jobs and the future that we have, or even the work environment. Some is easier for women than for men. You can experience experiences all around. For example, in the police force, there’s this, although we have a lot of women working there, but still they say it’s a very male dominated sector or fire brigade to have the same. It’s a very male dominated sector. Although women can do the same job and in the water sector, it’s, there are so many different jobs in the water sector coming up nowadays that more and more women get also involved because for example water utilities concentrate more on service. So you have a lot of service jobs like client service answering phones or et cetera.

Ulrike Kelm:

And this is very female. I once worked in a big national water commission in Mexico, and it was a high building. Their headquarters was a really high building. I think 14 floors. My department was the communications department, mainly women. And we were located in the 11th floor. So in the morning when you get up into the elevator, the elevator was full with men, but they all left and then lower floors. And the one, two, three, four, five, and then the lessons floor, it was just women, women leaving the elevator, going into the desks and the communication department. So it seems like that was a very female job. And when you visited some of your colleagues in the other floors where the technical development was, or whatever is in or the law department or whatever, suddenly you could see me nearly one or two other women around mainly secretaries or assistants of some head of departments and the others, they were all men around.

Ulrike Kelm:

So it was a very strange atmosphere. And then you got up into the communications department, you had a very nice, colorful carpet, beautiful furniture plants around, and you could see how, yeah, it’s a female style here. It looked so different. And when I have a look at experience that I heard from friends out of the sector, or even my own experience, when you are in this male environment, it feels sometimes strange being there because it’s either they don’t talk much to you, or you have very strange jokes that are not really funny for a woman to listen to. For example, a colleague from Senegal. She told me that, although she was a superior of her partner when she was working in the field, no one talked to her. They all were always talking to her partner and she wasn’t allowed to drive the car. It was her partner who should do this.

Ulrike Kelm:

And he was a man and she was his superior, but the society didn’t understand this. And another colleague of mine and Spain, she was the first woman in a, it was a public entity of a water department. And she was the first woman there. And she didn’t even have a bathroom for herself. And she sat, she was the first day in this office looking and finding her way through. And at the end of the day, she was crying. She was really desperate because she felt so lost. So excluded. And of course, I cannot say, this is a really scientific gender study, but these are stories that you’re here and to hear them a lot. And I’ve never heard any, anything similar from a man, never.

Can success stories bring more Women in Water?

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the stories, you know, everything you say here relates quite strongly with you know, I’ve been, I’ve been telling it’s already on that microphone in previous episodes, but I am somehow a water kid. You know, my, my parents met in an, a water engineering school. So I’ve been in that sector forever. And I’ve been hearing a lot of my, my mother telling me that she was the head of a department in engineering department. And usually when someone from outside would come and meet her, the first thing you would ask is, can I meet your boss? Because they couldn’t believe that a woman was the boss. So you referred to, to that element of the patterns. And you know, when Amazon was trying to automate everything and to make it so easier to find out the best talents they put in place an artificial intelligence, which was built on machine learning.

Antoine Walter:

And that was there to detect some patterns and pretty fast that artificial intelligence was only recruiting males in their thirties to forties, white, and coming from the same schools. And not because that artificial intelligence had a superior conscience, that it would be a racist or really against woman, but just because the machine was detecting patterns and reproducing patterns. And that is to me, the perfect example who shows what’s we have to overcome, but how can we beat a pattern? Is it with stories? Is it with references? Is it with examples? What would be your take at the beating that that’s pattern? Oh,

Ulrike Kelm:

It’s, I think it’s, it’s very typical. We always stick to what we know and what we know best. Although we consider it maybe not the best solution, but we stick to it. You can witness it in political elections. People tend to elect the same old that experience they made before, but they do not really opt for change. It’s that change is very difficult because it’s really shaking everything through, for example when you have a look for example, at, at research right now with the COVID pandemic, we have the situation that there has been a lot of research done around, et cetera, and that you find out that, Oh, there’s a lot of research going on for men. And then you find out that then the history of medical research, it’s more, more concentrated on men. You find out that, for example, other things, and we deal with, I’ve just learned recently that even a piano is designed for men because men have bigger hands.

Ulrike Kelm:

So they reach each tone easier than a woman who tends to have smaller hands. So even there, we find the male domination in, in our daily life and me being a left-handed person. I know exactly what this refers to because in my daily life, every single day, I find something I have to adapt to and which is not adapted to me. I have to adapt to it because it’s made for absolute different people than I am. So it’s really, I have to be the flexible one. And I think this is what women tend to do. They are the flexible ones. They adapt to situations. But when we have a look back and the development of change in culture, of course, I can always talk for my own culture with, it’s not Northern Germany. I cannot really talk here for others until early seventies, that a woman, when she wanted to work outside the house, she had to ask her husband for permission and the same as when doing a driving license and my country and Norfund Germany.

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Ulrike Kelm:

And I think this is very strange thing. So I never experienced this, but my mother, that was her use. That’s when she lived. And I grew up in the feeling that I could do anything I wanted to do. And without any limitations, because I had a mother who fought through this. So I had my mother like role model. We can say she fought that we had equal jobs at home. So cleaning, cooking, et cetera, no matter where the father, mother, or children. So we all had our work to do at home. It wasn’t just one providing for all the others. And when you have a look down at the international campaigns that are around, we have me too and equal pay. These are two big hashtags that are around the world at the moment. So we can see that this is definitely a topic that has to change that is, has to raise awareness about.

Ulrike Kelm:

And we definitely need to do something similar for jobs that to say that women can do the same job says, man, I don’t want to say that women are better in shops that different people with a different background, a different perspective and feeling full life because we are different. We are not all the same. We come from different backgrounds, we have different genders. We have different wishes. We have different cultures. So embracing all of them really helps the overall society because we are not just one male white male between 30 and 40 is as your AI from Amazon wanted us to be. So it’s very interesting to have a look at this and really make a look at your own, the own surroundings, what you see around everyone’s yourself,

Adressing all the talents, regardless of their gender

Antoine Walter:

If I pick into what you just said. Two elements that I see a big element of hope, which is that it took one generation to go from something which has granted like this to your perception, where a woman could, do much more than what’s a, your mother was allowed to do somehow. So that is the positive thing. Now, the, the challenging thing, it’s the role model aspect, because to have a role model, of course, if you are at home in your role mode, that is issue your father, your mother, you always have it in clear sight. And I guess that’s the easy role model puts easy between between brackets, of course, but still, still easy. How can we ensure that withinthis water industry, which is desperately looking for talents, which is missing talents, and somehow who forgets half of the talents by letting a lot of talented woman, aside of the road, how can we ensure to create those role models,

Ulrike Kelm:

How to create role models, especially showing them it’s the visibility it’s so obvious just to really make them be seen, to ensure that we have not just for example, on the conferences male only panels, because you always can find a good woman on the same job as a man. And if you really count through, then you have to say, we have six panelists and we don’t want all of them being white male. We want them to show what the workforce office, and if you show more of them on stage, if you show more of them as capable women, as they are as professionals, then you might influence even society. Then you can really change the, the aspiration of young girls in school that they might get interested into achieving this very demanding career. Because being honest, the water sector careers are very, very difficult.

Ulrike Kelm:

It’s high profession it’s really study. It’s hard, hard to study. It’s not an easy going thing. So when a woman really manages to be there, she is absolutely a professional. She, she can, she can do the same as a man and the man can do the same as the woman. So I, that shouldn’t be any difference and we should make this visible. And this is actually what my network wants to push. We want to push women onto the forefront. We want to make them see, we want to make them hurt. We really want to advocate for women in the sector and to be seen and respected and to be seen as a very normal professional as they are

Antoine Walter:

Talking of this visibility and awareness. I remember when we had our, our first discussion together preparing for that call. One of the things that you mentioned, one of the first thing you mentioned is that it made a change when Diane d’Arras became president of the international water association, because it was for the first time that there was a woman leading somehow the leading organization of that sector. Could you see that as a turning point? Or is it more of an anecdote?

Ulrike Kelm:

I hope it’s not an anecdote because, because I’m at turning point is when you start changing the inside of an organization too. And with Diane d’Arras she made a lot of changes. She had a super payor with her executive director and the board of directors where they all supported change. So it was the moment. It was a moment she wasn’t there before the moment was for her. And she is actually very experienced and pushing through big goals and a very male dominated environment. So she’s very experienced and starting change, pushing change and having a vision of change. And I hope this is long lasting.

Can Women of Power act as role models for Women in Water?

Antoine Walter:

You know, you mentioned also CoVid, which was there at the beginning of our conversation. What COVID has shown somehow as well in a surprising way, is that, I mean, there was the negative. I remember that the first week of lockdown, almost one year ago, where all the experts, which were invited on the TV were all male. And then people started to raise their hand and say, Hey, come on. They are not only male experts that that cannot happen. And what the long run has shown. And it’s a comparison, which is, I mean, comparing is not necessarily the best way to show things, but steel, that countries that did the best within this crisis are countries like New Zealand, like Germany, and which happened to be here.

Ulrike Kelm:

Don’t say this now. People are very unhappy in Germany with the current trends.

Antoine Walter:

The latest month have a bit, yeah. In Germany were harder. But when you look at New Zealand, New Zealand is the Paragon of the country where everything, now they are back to a new normal. I mean, they, they have masks drop everywhere. Everybody has their vaccine, everything. And it’s a female led country. That could be an inspiration when, when the next election comes around in the next country to say, Hey, if a woman can do it, can we just forget that there’s men and women and just look at the people, you know? So I don’t have really a question here. It’s more, you know, I’d wish for more gender half for, for more brilliant role model. It’s brilliant in the sense that they have this visibility so that everybody catches it and say, Hey, yeah, by the way, gender is an afterthought.

Ulrike Kelm:

Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t say that women are better than men because women haven’t had the chance to prove. So it’s now a first time a first-generation. So it’s really Novell. It’s a new thing that we have so many women leading countries, but when you have a look around women, haven’t had until now really the power to show that they are better. Maybe they are the same as men at the long run. And we just see some very extraordinary examples here, but nevertheless, in society, societies, people should not be excluded and women are half of the population. So why, why should they be excluded from the jobs? Why should they be excluded from having a professional career they want to have, why should they get stuck in the middle somewhere? And we see where these examples that you just mentioned, these very powerful women, and they really fought hard for this. And they are not, not very, it’s not easy, no easy job that they are doing. So it’s really extraordinary personalities that you just mentioned. And what I would like to say is we are 50% of the population. Nobody should be excluded one year. We are not a minority. We are half of it. We are part of it. We are the society. No,

Shall regulation push for Women in Water?

Antoine Walter:

Now, you know, there are two ways to take that is to try to move the sushi and to convince everyone. And the other approach would be to say, maybe we have to force it a bit at the beginning. And once we’ve entrenched that in the habits, probably we can release these enforcements. And I remember on that microphone, I had the discussion with Walid Khoury and he was mentioning that when he was hiring, when he was in his former role at attack, he would always take 10 candidates, five guys, five women, and really taking it on gender. And once he had done that, then it would simply take the best candidates out of the 10 and forgetting about a woman or, or male. That is one way that I would call it an internal rule. But above that, there could be an additional step, which would be to say, why not regulate. Why not say by law, there must be so much persons of each gender, at least in a board, at least in a company, at least in an engineering department. Do You think change can happen without that regulation. And you think regulation could bring something or I’m fully French with this vision of everything should be regulated.

Ulrike Kelm:

Well I think when I just have a look at data, for example, from the world bank report from 2019, it says there that in utilities, an average of 23% of female engineers and managers are 23% of the engineers and managers off female. This is not many. And when you say an average, this means that there are utilities without any woman engineer or any woman manager. So it’s, it’s really when you have a look around it’s and you see these low numbers, then you really think like, yeah, we have to force it. We have to push it because from itself, it doesn’t work. We see it because the workforce is there, educated people are there. Why don’t they hire them? Because they stick to old ideas that they cannot get rid of. And to push these ideas, you often need to have strong incentives to change company cultures, to change the mind of a hiring department, for example, or to change the mind of career paths.

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Ulrike Kelm:

So when you think about whom to engage into this change, it is definitely national laws or constitutions or labor laws that need to be changed. And at the same time, cultures and traditions, that public awareness needs to be changed. So you have to tackle all at once, whether that is a quota for women in the board, or whether it is something else. I think this should be really, really be seen by each company or each country or each culture itself, what works best. I think it’s very difficult to say this from my point of view, it’s very difficult to say this. The only thing that I can say is there’s an awareness gap, and we have to really put advocate for a change, how the saints is managed. It’s up to the ones who need to manage it. We cannot make the decisions for them, but the quota is definitely an tool that has been used for a while in several countries. And in many countries it has worked and maybe that’s something, that’s an idea.

How to network between Women in Water

Antoine Walter:

We’ve seen the role model aspect. We’ve seen the potential regulation aspect. So we have here the visibility elements, but we also have the potential enforcement aspect, but you are heading a network. And you alluded to at the, at the beginning about this networking element. I remember from my times in Suez, I remember some, some female manager who were, were saying they wanted to be the change that they would have loved to see before they stepped in, in those roles. And they were actively pushing women to be working with them, to be close collaborators to them. And that encapsulates this networking element, what’s the strength of a network. How can you develop a network? And how can you leverage a network to achieve better gender diversity in the workplace, in the water sector?

Ulrike Kelm:

Well, that’s the question it’s networking is actually what we are all made of. We are societal animals. Let’s say like this, we always live together in a structure. We always support each other. And if we say we are in network for a certain type of our societies, which is in our case, the woman working in the water and sanitation sector, then it helps them to exchange to see, to share the pre-qual patient or the SP ration ideas. For example, when I was, it was many, many years ago when I was 30 news, still very new in the sector. I was in a conference somewhere. I think it wasn’t a stumble. Yeah, it wasn’t Istanbul. I was in a conference and I share the taxi with four other women, one very senior women who was a name and the sector in that time and us, we were three young women and we were sitting there and the taxi driving.

Ulrike Kelm:

So the heavy traffic of Istanbul, and then this woman, the senior woman, she was talking on the phone with her 91 year old mother and talking to her about medicine, medical, examinations, results, et cetera, et cetera. And when she stopped this call with her mother, all of us three, we were asking her how she was doing arranging family life to, with her professional life, because she had a very professional life. She was full-time professional. I would say a thousand percent engaged in her, her job. And we asked her how she could do this. And she sat down, well, I have to, my husband doesn’t do it. And I thought it was very, very interesting that actually after this conferences, us, this young woman, we met with the young woman in this conference and we started not a real network. It was more like friendship networks.

Ulrike Kelm:

We are from work from different countries, different organization, but we started to network to talk to each other, to write mails, to have group codes, et cetera. Yeah. To, to exchange because that is this need. We felt kind of lonely. There was something that we were missing in our work environment with our colleagues around us, with our male colleagues around us. And so actually we are still all friends with each other. We still support each other, but this was a small, very private network. And when you find out that you can mobilize women, when you just talk to them on international conferences where you meet them or on work meetings, where you meet them, you find out you have something in common. It’s very nice to share. It’s very nice to build something up and supporting each other on the career path means. So I don’t know whether this is the same for men, but for women.

Ulrike Kelm:

It also means that we support each other on, on family issues because still, well, we have very engaged with our, all our families. So the balance to find the balance between profession and passion for the job, and then to have the other tasks around us, still very female. This helps a lot. When you talk to like-minded women who are facing the same situations who have gone through this situation, and you can ask them, how have you done? So tell me, what are your, your advices to the, I can overcome a difficult situation. This is very, very valuable. So, and when we have a look at our network, we find that young women, women who are still students over to middle management professionals to seniors, we have them all there and they all get something out of being connected with you, each other. So the elderly ones, they get from the very young ones that new influences, the new passion, the vision, and the enthusiasm for everything.

Ulrike Kelm:

So you feel, yeah, that’s why I wanted to join it. When I, when I started and the middle ones, they get career pals advices, et cetera. So it’s it’s helps everyone. And when we think about advocating for women in the sector, actually, I always think about a very, as I started off internationally and Latin America, I think about a very Latin American slogan, which was actually a very revolutionary slogan. And it’s means like El Pueblo or nasal Hamas set up in CDOT, which means like together, we are strong and that’s it together. We are strong. That’s why we are together. That’s a encapsulation. Actually.

Antoine Walter:

You, you mentioned this senior lady, which was somehow a lighthouse when you met her in the taxi, do you have other cool stories or cooler could profiles that you could share us right now?

Ulrike Kelm:

Cool profiles. Actually,

Antoine Walter:

Sorry. Yeah. A path something would share, which can be, you know, use this as a target, to, to replicate, to to get inspired.

Ulrike Kelm:

It always depends on what you really looking for. For example, I get very much inspired by women who, how can I say, who are still humans who do not get absorbed by the, by this follow up? I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say this, then a wonder

Antoine Walter:

Woman. There they are. Yeah.

Ulrike Kelm:

Yeah, because the wonder woman’s, they’re just two or three in the world and the others are normal people. And when you ask them, I, I really think it’s extremely interesting to have a real person behind all this. And you ask for the past for example, we have in our network, we have a mentor mentorship program where we bring exactly these together, the really big stars of the sector who have won prices, who have discovered new things who work on topics of high importance, who were the first women in the sector doing this. And they meet with the very young ones of our network. And they just say, Hey, my career path has been that. And then I remember that in Stockholm, two years ago, the Stockholm water prize, when she said she was a biologist. And she said that, I don’t know why the people didn’t listen to me.

Ulrike Kelm:

Maybe it was because I was a biologist and they were all water professionals, or maybe it was because I was a young woman. So, and when you hear this from a woman who just won a big price and hearing that she was confronted with such difficulties and could overcome these difficulties, then you really get inspired. So right now, I really think about all these big award winners who did a lot of research, who pushed companies through. You already mentioned Diane who let the big water company in South America and Argentina, there are a lot of women now doing first research work on water. And COVID for example, which is now a very hot topic in these days. And this year, and this past 12 months, and being honest, I’m really overwhelmed by, by thinking who to recommend it. I couldn’t, name-dropping, it’s just too many. When I started with one, I think like, Oh, that’s another one. There are really good women out there.

Do Women face a Glass Ceiling in the Water Industry?

Antoine Walter:

When I was in engineering school, in my promotion, there was 55% of women. So somehow it sounded to me like, no, this is not a problem. And probably if you had asked to the girls in, in my promotion, they would say the seminar way, look at men and women. It’s okay. We are half, half, apparently we were all wrong. Unfortunately. So when would you recommend a young professional to start engaging with your network, for instance, or with similar organizations? When is, is the right time, is it’s from the beginning to see what’s the outcome. Is it maybe even earlier to get inspired by about your career within the water world? Is there absolutely no wage and you should be joining at any age, which I guess is probably the best answer, but what’s your take there?

Ulrike Kelm:

I would say it’s always important to look out for inspiring people to be open and to us. But now I feel really like an old woman giving advice to the very young, no, but it’s, it’s really true. You are not alone. That’s the thing. And that’s actually the slogan of my network. We are not alone. We are there together. We can support each other together. We can make us yeah. Help and we can shine together. And that’s not by still being individual and not being just one among many. But I think, I think when you choose a career, you usually have an idea of what you can do with this. And then finding out the way you wish to go. And networking is definitely something very important. And I hope, I hope that in the future, we do not need female only networking a hope in the future. We can have networking for all. But I given, given the current situation of our cultures and of our sector, thinking about this 23% female engineers and managers in utilities on average, given that, making this, that some utilities don’t even have female engineers and managers, I think then the sooner, the better, whenever you feel like you want to make up your mind for a certain profession, look out for other people and get, seek, help, seek support, or seek advice.

Antoine Walter:

And for the woman that might be listening to us right now, how can they join your network? What would be your advice?

Ulrike Kelm:

We are very accessible on social media. The most frequented one is our social media group. On linked in the show. You can find us with women in water and sanitation network, WW S N or an our website, which is currently under construction. So don’t be afraid to find old data that soon it will be shine and shiny and new and beautiful, or you can find us on Twitter or Facebook also. But LinkedIn is definitely the platform where we exchange with our network, where we are most present and yeah, looking forward to meeting new people that,

Antoine Walter:

So obviously if you have a look at the episode notes, all the links will be, will be present there. And WWS Sen is pretty easy to type in to find the on LinkedIn only. It’s a, it’s been a pleasure of discussing with you in this deep dive. I have to be cautious of your time. Nevertheless. So I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

So here in that section, the ideas that I try to keep the questions short, and you can try to keep the answers short as well, but I’m never cutting the microphone. So my first question would be what is the most exciting projects you’ve been working on and why

Ulrike Kelm:

Every project I work on? I think it’s very exciting. So right now I would say it’s my latest project, but it’s the networks, the WWF and network where I’m a founding member among a group of wonderful women. We met some years ago and we decided to group us to form a formal network two years ago in 2019. And now we are having over 200 members in all regions of the world in Asia, Africa, Europe, North, and South America. It’s just amazing to see how it’s worked, it’s working, how it functions and that people are interested in joining and supporting the structure and using our network to propel their own ideas and careers and visions. It’s I think right now, of course, this is my super, super exciting project I I’m having at the moment. So I’m very, very happy being there and working for them.

Antoine Walter:

So I had guests that would give us a taste about your next answer, but let me ask, nevertheless, what’s your favorite part of your current job

Ulrike Kelm:

Meeting people? I wouldn’t

Ulrike Kelm:

That’s yeah. That’s how I slogan meeting people. And it’s well it’s meeting people means you learn on a daily basis about how people function, how they think, how they work, what they do. And when I have a look around even our founding members, which is just a handful of people, what diverse backgrounds we have and where live and what our people do. So we have someone who is mixed culture, lived in India, living in Germany now doing international work in companies and having experience in entrepreneurship. We have an American living in Africa, working on really on the ground, influencing local authorities on, for example, building toilets and public buildings, which is something extremely revolutionary. And when you see the background of these people, they have chemical engineers. We have engineers, we have social scientists just talking to them is really an eye opener talking to these people. It’s I can’t stop saying how awesome they are. I really enjoy this. And when you have a look further on in our network, every single person has a unique story, and it’s fascinating to learn. What about what they do when you just ask them, what do you do in your daily life? What is your job? You can just sit there and enjoy what you’re here. It’s incredible. They are S yeah, I’m amazed by them. Wonderful people.

Antoine Walter:

I think we can feel that you transported pretty well. So, yeah. Thanks a lot for that. What is the, the trends to watch out in the water industry?

Ulrike Kelm:

Oh, it always depends where you are, where you live, because it’s a different thing being in Northern Europe or being in Sub-Saharan Africa or somewhere else. So what I think was, is really impressive for me. And of course it’s been around for a while, but it became really, I would say headlines during the past year is tracking waste water and wastewater. You can really find the house of the city of the area where you live in. You can really track what is going on with the people. And they did track. They tracked COVID-19 that tracked the virus that could work on virus outbreaks even before population got tested, just because they could see it in a wastewater. And there were people involved that did microbiology that, that wastewater engineering, that biologists, epidemiologists I’m not worried about my English,

But it’s impressive to see what work they did. And I think for me, this was the most trending during the past 12 months. And I would leave it with this because I think with news trends, latest trends in the water industry for me, this is the most impressive, I would say,

Antoine Walter:

Can you take the opportunity to place here an anecdote and sorry, because that is not going to sound like, like, you know, mansplaining, but you know, I recently re-read Laila miserable from Victoria and there’s two full chapters around the life and the sewer and Victoria go is, is really developing a full theory about the fact that the sewer is the best reflection of the sushi, because you really see everything and you can track everything from the behavior of people from the sewer. And that was two century ago. And now it’s true that with what you alluded to this wastewater base, DPD immunology and the, and the COVID tracking and everything, maybe Victoria was a great water treatment specialist. And he didn’t know it. So, so yeah,

Ulrike Kelm:

Late 19th century, actually, this is where my hometown Hamburg became important for the water sector, because they did track wastewater because they had a cholera outbreak and the city, and didn’t know what to do against this. And then they could really analyze where the wastewater came from, where did it pollute the freshwater Wells, and they could start treating the water. So this is where it was actually born. It was the water and wastewater treatment. And Hamburg was born out of a pandemic and not, not a pandemic. It was an epidemic, I’m sorry, a cholera outbreak. And because they took care of the water, they saved lives and they were really strict with us. They closed Wells. People were not allowed to take water from worlds. They had to educate the people. It was a really big campaign how to do it. And so actually it feels like we are back to Holland to, to the 19th century, no, only with new and modern technology for me, this is definitely one of the most fascinating things, the dirty, dirty sewer wastewater, all of the people.

Antoine Walter:

Yeah. You know, in a podcast called don’t waste water, I’m not going to contradict you.

Ulrike Kelm:

Okay.

Antoine Walter:

Do you have sources to recommend, to keep up with the water and wastewater market trends aside from, of course, and again, the link is going to be in the episode notes, but the, the women in water and sanitation network, but all the sources,

Ulrike Kelm:

I really can’t recommend a source. I think I’m not the right person, to be honest in this. I’m not, as I mentioned in the beginning, I studied something different. I studied international relations and communications management. So I think really the technical technical questions, shouldn’t be really my questions. Yeah. But, you know aside from

Antoine Walter:

Technical topics, and I’m sorry, because now I’m sidetracking you, but I know that for instance, I have some, some people in my junior world where, when there’s a specific topic, which comes in the news, I have no understanding of that topic at all, but I know that if I go to those people, they’re going to be able to, to break it down in something that even the stupid, so me can understand, and I don’t need to grasp the topic. I just know that those are my go-to, those are my proxy to understand something happening out there. And within the water words, I have these kinds of people, but I know that when there’s something popping up on a specific topic, if I try to get my head around that, I’m just gonna have a huge headache when instead of what’s, I can just give them a call and they’re going to explain it to me. So, yeah, that’s a, I mean, there’s all kinds of sources just to say that

Ulrike Kelm:

It’s, I’m being honest, I’m it really would need to be the really precise question because I’m very general it’s. I get my information from both from technical sources, like people or journals over to international organizations. And there’s always some good look out for data. For example, when I work on my topics, I really love to, as I cite cited before the world bank reports or United nations as an overarching topic, and then I can take deep down into the expert journals and expert publications, but to GI, for example GI water is definitely something or Bluefield research or water leaders and RFS. So many,

Antoine Walter:

That’s a hell of sources. See,

Ulrike Kelm:

It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really, it’s, it’s there. People, as people are very academic in the sector, they tend to publish a lot. So we don’t run out of new latest research and results. So people are really academic and they really appreciate good education. So for example, if you really want to look into sanitation, my first source will always be the Delft university because they have a sanitation school where people from all over the world come and study on the specific topic of sanitation. And then they go back into the countries and change, because that is something I do some advertisement for this university now, but it’s really wherever you travel, you find people from this university and key positions on this is something extremely interesting to see, to observe,

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Antoine Walter:

Gives us a hint into the strength of, of networking. Just do do to put things in perspective as well. But of course, networking comes for a reason and that it’s the chicken and the egg who was there at first, the technical knowledge or the network. So, yeah,

Ulrike Kelm:

It’s the power it’s really. And because we deal with societal stuff, it’s not just that we deal with isolated issues. Water is really touching everything. It’s touching all our lives. It’s touching the environment, it’s touching the, every living, being on earth that touches us, our societies, our cultures, and our economies. And so we have to do it together.

Antoine Walter:

Well, I think you have a last question on my list and I don’t want to put too much pressure on you, but that’s really the one where I expect a brilliant answer from you. Oh my God. Would you have someone to recommend me that I should definitely invite on that same microphone and to give you a bit of time to think, because you don’t have to be limited to one and please for the one listening to that, it’s not because your name is not going to be cited here that only could doesn’t think of you and does doesn’t want to recommend you. But you know, when I was publishing for it was this this word woman day, somehow I have a problem with the word deal of something, because word, woman day somehow means to me that the other day of the year are not women day, but okay. That’s I’m not sidetracking you here again to do that topic, but I realized that on my podcast where I try to bring this gender diversity topics, I try to bring them forward because I’m the son of a feminist. And if I wouldn’t do that, my mother would simply kill me, but I had only 14% of female guests, which means I’m in a terrible industry. And I do worse than that terrible industry. So to me, it was really painful to see that. So with this long introduction, that’s why I expect you to

Ulrike Kelm:

Have asked me, she should have asked me, I could have recommended you thousands.

Antoine Walter:

So let’s go for the thousands

Ulrike Kelm:

Where to start. I think I being honest at this moment, I really would like to not look too far. I would definitely recommend my co-chair at the women and water and sanitation network, Emily Woods, because she is a very young entrepreneur in the sanitation sector in Kenya. And she’s an American living in Africa and she’s influencing with her work, the community she lives in. And I think being an entrepreneur abroad and Africa is which is not your country, where you look different and you do such a fantastic work. I think it’s definitely more than one story you get out of her. You can learn a lot about how the, for the company is in the sector and the sanitation sector. I would definitely go for her. I can just to name one,

Antoine Walter:

Thanks a lot for this effort to limit it to one, because I do get the feeling from what you were explaining, that there would be thousands. So I’d start with her. And then of course, I might come back to you for further suggestions. All the, it’s been a pleasure discussing this, a very important matter with you. I’m really glad you took some time to enlighten us and to, to show a bit why that matters. So thanks a lot. And I’ve touched you where people can, can reach you outline again, it’s going to be in the episode notes, but there’s your, your website on the progress WWS Sen and there’s your, your LinkedIn group. And I got that. You’re you? You’re also on Twitter probably sooner on tick-tock.

Ulrike Kelm:

Yeah, that’s, that’s another challenge. We, we don’t have staff, so we all do this on a voluntary basis and we need to fill in the continuous communication, but Tik TOK is definitely on our list too. Yeah. And other channels. So that’s more, but yeah. Thanks a lot. It’s been really fun talking to you and with you and answering all your questions. And may I suggest

Antoine Walter:

One follow-up, which I wish to be as soon as possible in the future, but don’t get me wrong a up the day that you dismantle your network, the data to say, okay, we’ve achieved it. So we don’t need to have a specific women in water and sanitation network. And because we are there, we are at 50 50, and people don’t look at gender anymore. I wish that they coms really. Yeah,

Ulrike Kelm:

Me too. Me too. Definitely. I wish this netbook wouldn’t be necessary.

Antoine Walter:

Oh, our agenda. What, what you do next year? Come on now

Ulrike Kelm:

Being honest. I think we need some, several generations. It’s not so easy. We’ve been stuck in situations and the world is facing so many different crisises and global changes. I don’t, yeah. I don’t think cultural changes can be really achieved within short period of time, but we are, we are on a good track having a look around what women do, what they can do, how confident they are. I think that’s the most important thing. Confidence we can get there that makes perfect within this lifetime. Hopefully. Yeah.

Antoine Walter:

So thanks [inaudible] and see you as soon as possible.

Ulrike Kelm:

Yeah. Thanks very much. Thanks for listening to don’t wastewater.

Other Episodes:

FREDsense: Revolutionizing Water Quality Monitoring with Biosensor Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 7 May 2025

Swirltex: Revolutionizing Wastewater Treatment with Bubbly Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 30 April 2025

Blue Foot Membranes: The Next Evolution in Water Filtration

By Antoine Walter | 16 April 2025

Echo River Capital: Pioneering the Future of Water Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 3 April 2025

1001 Fontaines: Engineering Sustainable Water Access Through Social Entrepreneurship

By Antoine Walter | 22 March 2025

Amazon’s Water Footprint: Tech Giant’s Quest for Water Sustainability

By Antoine Walter | 19 March 2025

Turing: The AI Revolution Quenching the Water Industry’s Thirst for Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 26 February 2025

Altillion: Pioneering Digital Intelligence for Water Asset Management

By Antoine Walter | 6 February 2025

Flocean: Pioneering Ocean-Based Water Solutions

By Antoine Walter | 15 January 2025

Botanical Water Technologies: Harvesting Liquid Gold from Plants

By Antoine Walter | 4 December 2024

The post It’s hard to be what you can’t see: How to get more Women in Water? appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

The “Smart Water Solutions” podcast addresses technical hints and industrial expertise to better exploit water treatment technologies.

What we covered:

How Sales and Marketing people active in our very technical industry need competitive benchmarks and technical understanding

How podcasting is a powerful channel to save them hours of exhausting searches and cross-platform investigation

The three layers of information that shape the Water Sector

How Giving is the true Having, as the better way to understand a topic actually is to explain it.

The influence of product lifecycles in the Water Industry

The work behind every single technical deep dive

The similarities and differences between scientific papers and podcasts

The best ways to bridge industry and academia to build a successful path

How the Water Industry’s product life cycles make it a totally different beast compared with IT or Software

What’s the path of a successful Ph.D. researcher during and after the deep dive it involves

How the best way to learn is to take critics, especially if they are bad, and to DO rather than think

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Hakim on LinkedIn

Visit the Smart Water Solutions Apple Podcast Page

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi Hakim. Welcome to the show!

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Hi Antoine.

Antoine Walter:

Glad to have you. I’m really glad to have you because it’s the first time I see you. I’ve been listening to you, so I’m really happy to have you here. And actually, you know what? I like to start every interview with a postcard and I was looking at your place. I mean, the place where you live right now, and I typed it into Google and Google didn’t return me something about the city. At first, they just said, it’s the headquarter of the biggest beer company in the world. So you live in a beer city, right?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yes. That’s true. Thanks a lot. I mean, Antoine for having me in this podcast and I’m really also glad to be here and thanks a lot for having people who really formed the water domain and really bridge really very good, insightful content. So you ask maybe the wrong guy, cause I don’t drink alcohol, but I’m exactly in the middle of the biggest. Let’s say a beer corporates worldwide, but the good thing they have alcohol free beer. That’s a good thing. So the good thing about Leuven, I would say Leuven, is very famous with the university KU Leuven. So you can imagine you have more than 55,000 students and people are living 11 is almost 70,000. You can imagine that the people are living in Leuven and are actually working for the 55,000 students more than 5,000 PhD students, all in medicine, drug, and then chemistry and other stuff. So it’s a huge facility. Yeah, apart from that, I would say to me, someone coming from Morocco, I know the French language been touched with the French culture Leuven is like really it’s a harmonic between French and Dutch culture is beautiful. I would say city it’s. I would say it’s recommended to visits for someone who would like to see the Harmoni mix between French and Dutch cities it’s here.

Antoine Walter:

Okay. So that’s a good recommendation for the day we can travel again and we can visit places. So put it on their bucket list. Actually, you touched the university of Leuven. You just mentioned it. If I take the opportunity to jump into your, your path, you are currently pursuing a PhD at the university of Leuven. Right. Do we understand that right?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yes. So right now, I mean, my background is in water technology. I’ve been working with Dow chemical for about eight years, Dow and Dupont. And then last year I moved from, let’s say working in the water industry to doing some fundamental research. So right now I’m doing a PhD on research and development of solvent, tolerant, nano-filtration that can be used for water mixed with this is the reason what I’m doing here. So just to give you a background, how I ended up here doing a PhD in Leuven, it’s quite, I mean, most of the students they ask me. Okay, well, what are you doing when you find a job, make you back to school? It’s not conventional. I mean, I know, I know it’s not conventional and you’re right. I mean, sometimes you get involved in some things and really you get like, let’s say very interested in one topic.

And then, you know, the companies, they change the strategy. They changed the way, how they navigate in whatever the application that they are in. And most of the time they develop projects and they put a bullet on the head of that project. They kill it. So it’s, if it’s stay in your heart, you will continue that project. If you said, okay, I will move. I will keep going. Whatever the company takes me, then, then you keep going. For me, I’ve done the voice of customer of that project. I understand let’s say the technical background behind this technology. And we started actually, when I was working with a company document, could we have started that project with KU Leuven and other companies, other universities to develop this chemistry platform for solvent torrents applications. So when the company said no for that project, for me, it was, I was reluctant at the beginning.

And then later on, I said, okay, let’s take a risk, jumped to that project because there is a good value for this technology. If someone develop it in the future and it will solve a couple of applications in the industry and also the team that’s here in love. And I mean, profits are evil when cucumbers, when known has more than three decades expertise on this, on this technology, which I think a few universities worldwide has this, let’s say this expertise. And this is, let’s say the reason how I jumped from working at the company to doing a PhD at the university. So

Antoine Walter:

Seconds ago that you’re working on a technology that someone might develop in the future. Let me put that idea in the fridge because I didn’t realize before you just said it. And now that’s something that makes fully sense to me with your path and with your various interests. So really I put that question in the fridge and I’ll come back to you within our deep dive with that topic. Actually just before we go to the deep dive, I’d like to get how you fall in love with Water. How did you do start this interest with Walter. And how do you connect the dots between your first engineering study is then you’ve made a, a master’s in, in sensors technology, which is also amazing. When you think of it, then you’ve been in the industry. You come back with the research, what is this connecting line? Is it a waterline or what is it it’s? I mean, this back to

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

What I did in my muscles, in an, in Morocco and in chemistry. And frankly, when I was doing my study, I was always asking myself, what is this sense of all those things that we are studying? And then I think most of the students, they get this questions until the end of the master thesis. When you choose the topic, if you chose the topic that you like. I remember we had the lecture, which is that time water treatments. And we had a professor who teach us one lecturer delivers us Moses technology thing in 2007. And by that time he was talking about this technology and not too many companies pour the wide at that time or produced a reverse osmosis, I think almost yeah. In us and then Japan. And then I get answers to on this technology as a memory technology and then did my masters.

And after that, I was looking where I can continue my study. And in the same time, I guess, yeah, you get good quality of study and same time have access to the industry market to get some expertise. And also it’s not expensive. I would say it’s kind of free of charge. The good place would be it’s in Germany where we can study, you have the access to the company to do internship, to work after that. And also it doesn’t cost too much. I mean, you have, you get a decent, good quality of education, but it doesn’t cost you like in UK or in the other place. So I moved to Germany and I moved to castle. That was recommendation of my friends. One of the good place in Germany to get good education is also similar to live in a city. Really it’s a mega city for students.

And at that time I selected a topic that was also interested in me, which is sensor, all kinds of sensors that we use in chemistry, lab, conductive [inaudible] and flows. And so all those councils have was very interesting for me because something that you’ve touched them, something, that’s, you evaluate what you have in your water. I did a muscle in that department. I remember it’s electronic departments and there was only one professor from a chemistry background. And someone told me, there is a professor here who work in water technology. And he worked with universities from Morocco, from where you are coming. So I stepped to his door is like perfect much. He told me I have projects with the case university on treating the only oil waste water. So I said, I’m looking for internships. I work with him for small projects and also does another projects.

And after that I did my master thesis with him on developing membrane bioreactor for all the wastewater treatments, which we get from Tunisia and Morocco. And then later on Dow chemical was looking for someone who can understand the language and the mentality of North Africa to support, not African for water treatment, and also has slight expertise on MBR at that time, thou has intention to step in the MBR business, but they didn’t. And as someone who’s willing to travel. So this is how I get working with Dow was on post solutions having, let’s say master thesis in [inaudible]. And also I was working on manifestation to remove ezine. We had also another projects friend of mine and that’s place. We had a project with Bangladesh where they develop none of filtration. We do noble energy to remove ezine from water for drinking water. So those are the component that’s brings me, let’s say to Dell, chemical, I would say, and then working in water sector,

Antoine Walter:

That’s an interesting path and uncommon path, but it’s interesting.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yeah. And then interestingly, with, when I get to see the first installation desalination, for instance, for me, it was interesting. It’s like you have a membrane inside the whole system and the membrane communicates with us with some source for me, like was kind of something that’s ditch view something that is, it doesn’t scare me. The things that they have done, how they calibrate the soul, how they program to with MATLAB or CMS or whatever, the software for me, it was not so difficult to get to that space.

Antoine Walter:

I guess the story makes sense. But the deep dive of today is another story, which I would like to understand coming from you. I have alluded to it a bit in the introduction. The reason why I’ve listened to you quite a lot before we meet is that you actually run your own water podcast. And you know, I had Adam tank and and Jim Lauria on that same microphone a couple of weeks ago. And they, they also run a podcast. So let’s say it’s a, the podcaster meetup. But what Adam said is that to him, they were already plenty or too many podcasts on the water topic. And which I would oppose. If you take a category like true crime, they’re like 10,000 times more podcasts that in the water word. But to me, when I started that podcast venture, the only podcast around you was you. And I felt like, you know, it’s very cool to listen to your interviews for one hour per week or one hour every second week, but that’s not enough. I need more. So I thought, okay, that, that more of that I need, I’m going to create it. So that’s how I started a bit following your path. So that leads me to a very simple question is how did you start? Why did you start a podcast venture?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

That’s a good question. You know, when my job was traveling to the customer more than 40% of time. So when I was traveling, I need to use that time in a train of airport in the taxi and the flights. So it’s so much you lost. I mean, when you travel to the customer to have one hour meeting, you spend two days traveling and there was two days the only thing that I can use them, it’s when I’m waiting for any transport or in the car. I was listening to the podcast, Joe Rogan, Jordan Patterson, I mean, psychology, blockchain, and different topics. And then there’s one thing that whenever you go to the customer, when you step out of the customer, you get an information about the weaknesses, the strength of your products, what you are selling to that customer. And also you get insight about the competitors.

And then when I was traveling to other customers, I mean, this is something that I, most of the time I do when I’m traveling, let’s say a big dairy producer in New Zealand. So the first thing I do is I studied the homepage. And then when I started the homepage, I tried to understand what kind of new product they have done. Let’s say they concentrate new protein with EDI, with this technology, this technology competing against the technology that I am offering. So this kind of content was not available in podcasts. I need to sit in the hotel, look on the ads and it’s search stuff. There was no video, nothing that can give me this information. Then I was looking in a podcast. I didn’t find someone who can bridge me this insight, because if I get this information, I will be very confident when I assist with the customers.

I know exactly the weakness of mechanical vapor compressor. I know the weakness aquaporin I know when aquaporin makes sense, compared to Reverse Osmosis, all those kind of insight, I didn’t find them. And then I discussed, I ran kind of, you know, when you launch products, the first thing you need to do blueprints in voice of customer to understand if there is a need not develop something based on vacuum. So I asked my colleagues from marketing and sellers and they told me it’s definitely a good idea, because we spent so many hours in the car. If we would have someone can bring us those insights, that will be valuable for us using that time instead of listening five hours, music or whatever. So this is how they encouraged me. And then I started doing my own podcast.

Antoine Walter:

So that was a competitive benchmark on one end. And it was also a sales training or an application training for your, your sales colleagues.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Exactly. You mean, you said the point that was at the beginning was kind of a product for my surrounding. The first interview I did with consulting was something that’s always happy. I send it to, let’s say to the customer that I’ve been working with. And also, I mean, if you look to buy first episode, there were questions answered that. So many of my customers, they would like to get an insight or answer about. So it’s like something that’s helped me and also helped my surround at the beginning.

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Antoine Walter:

No, it’s, it’s very interesting because it sounds familiar to me, not because of the competitive intelligence sediment, but because of the explaining the sector to my, my colleagues. And sometimes I thought, you know, they will be tired after a certain point of time to listening only to me. So let me dragging some people that might be much more experts of the field than I am, and they will explain to them. So it’s very interesting actually, because it’s, it sounds very similar to me, but actually what’s interesting is that in the meantime I found out that there are more podcasters than just you and me covering this Waterfield, but still when you look at the various podcasts, which are out there, I’m not sure if there’s many others in Europe, I still don’t know all of them, but there are lots of fellow podcasters in the U S and what they share with me, which they don’t share with you is that they all come from the sales and marketing sides of the industry. And to my understanding, you are the only technical podcaster in this water field. So how do you feel to be different there?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Well, I mean, think maybe you agree with me, or I know when we talk about, I think water technology, when you sit in front of the customers, I think 95% or more than 90% is technical discussion. And that technical discussion actually is translated to a marketing and sales pitch. So when I’m talking about CapEx, OPEX is something that’s you explain to me how much OPEX and CapEx, and then translate them in terms of dollar. And that’s exactly what a sales and marketing. They pitch the customer. Look, we have a product competing against PayPal X because you would save so much OPEX within one month. And the return of investment. This is how much before getting those numbers, there is a technical question, which is you ask the customer, what problem really, you need to solve with the member that this technology cannot solve. They say, well, we have problem.

We need to shut down the system every day, we need to clean the system every day. This is the technical information that I’m looking for. You and marketing. You take that information and you make sense out of it in terms of money. So we, all of us are talking the same language, let’s say, but a different layer. So this is why for me, it was kind of this raw material that’s, I’m trying to extract is first valuable for the people who are operating daily and the plants, and also valuable for marketing and sellers, because I’ve been working with marketing people. They know when you say something technical, they can translate it into dollars, how much would it mean for the customers. So this is kind of, let’s say for me, I’m, I’m kind of the bridge between the technical and the marketing and you guys, you have the sophisticated language to translate what I’m trying to get out of the customer mouth in technical way. I would say,

Antoine Walter:

I think that’s also a, probably a particularity of the water industry when you think of it because it’s full of engineers. So sometimes the, well, sometimes often the sales guys or the marketing guys are also engineers. So we are really a technically driven industry. So, but yes, I think you’re fully right, but still, I need to drag you in a corner and to be a bit provocative here, you know, in your podcast speech, you identify technology experts as key stakeholders, as you just said, but also policy makers, investors, and researchers. And I don’t see any kind of mention from sales and marketing people. So what about us? We are, we are this fifth column, which is invisible. What do you think about this sales and marketing role is it somewhere in the background. Don’t take me wrong. I don’t try to bounce a bad question at you were, but I would be interesting to have your take on sales and marketing is it’s only or,

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Well, I mean, if I look to the marketing people that I’ve been working with, I would say at least in, within DOW, I think the most of them, they are, I would say strong technical than me. Maybe they have so much years working in this, in that field. So the way how I see the marketing people, they have very, very, very strong, let’s say knowledge on technical stuff, the seller also, the only thing is, I mean, the seller or marketing people, they take with them. TSND which is I mean, was my job as technical service and development engineer, because every technology you keep accumulating technical details every year, the how and why this technology can bring a value for X customer, the sellers marketing. They know that, but when it comes to the so many details that they accumulate every year, this is where they need.

Let’s say the technical guys like me, but marketing and seller is not like consumer product is not. I mean, it’s not like when you go to Amazon, you can compare smartphone X with smartphone B no, it’s very technical technology. And in order to do marketing part of this technology, you need to understand that technology. So to me, the markets unsettled people, they are very technical. Maybe they know have enough time to follow all the details. And this is why they moved to, let’s say to focus on a broad picture, they have customers, they have account, they need to follow with this account supply chain. They have to deal with other stuff, but technically they need to know. I mean, most of them, they know what they’re selling. It’s not like they sell you something. They have no idea how it works. And then what does mean no, no, I think they know what they’re doing.

And they have really good understanding of what’s going on. And in my podcast is when I say the water experts, it’s marketing, TSN the seller, ENS, all those people who really work in water technology. That’s what I mean by market. So even manufacturing people, they know what they’re doing because they develop the stuff. They pilot everything inside the house. They mimic the condition outside. They really were tough with me. Whenever I have an issue with a customer, it gets back to the supply. People work on the C producing membrane, they know what they are doing. As I said, it’s not like consumer product is very technical product. You need to understand what you are selling. Do you agree with me,

Antoine Walter:

You mastered that curve ball, which I sent you. So congrats with that. I fully agree with you. I fully agree with you, which is also sometimes the limits when you think of it. Because as I said earlier, there’s a lot of technical people in our water industry, which are working in sales and marketing roles. And the limit of that is sometimes we have more technical skills than we have sales and marketing skills, because it’s, it might still be a different skillset. And I fully agree with you when you say that it’s not consumer good, and that you can not just apply the same receipts than Danon or Procter and gamble. But still nevertheless, to me, when I switched from engineering and application to sales, the biggest thing I had to learn is that you have to go to the customer and prevent yourself from telling him what he needs.

You have to start by just shutting up raising questions, listening to his problems. And that is counter-intuitive. As a, as an engineer, you’re an engineer. You come to a plant, you see there’s that problem, that problem, that problem, you have to control yourself because you want to go to the operator and tell him, no, correct that. Then I will do this and I will do that. But if you do that, the guy doesn’t know you. It’s like it’s insulting. It’s not the way you should behave. So that’s why sometimes this industry might also benefit from pure sales and marketing guys with a less technical knowledge, because sometimes it’s a blessing to ignore things because you dare to ask questions. So that’s the only, let’s say slight amendment. I would have to use statements. But apart from that, I agree with you.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yeah, that that’s definitely, I mean, I do see it’s in that way, but still, I mean, you are right in those kinds of water technology to a probe or to get, because as you said, you need to be silent to get as much insights from your customer in order to pitch, or to bring the value of your products in the table, to bring that value in the table. You need to prop, you need to have some questions to really have the feeling what’s going on. And the better the question, the good insight that you can get from that person. And it’s always helped if you have good technical understanding, because you will remove all those basic questions and you get to the heart of things that you think is very sensitive. You know, it helps, you know, but it doesn’t mean that if you don’t have that, you will struggle.

No. I mean, I’ve known your light. I’ve known seller who really have, let’s say a good overall vision. So when we’re talking about selling a package of technology, I mean, now you said, if you would like to sell us an exchange on arrow and that’s case someone who is not familiar with all those technology, he is better putting questions more than us because everyone is looking for his silo, you know, you’re right. I mean, I’m looking to drive for our member and he’s looking for you if he’s looking for ionic shares. But if someone is coming outside, he has different view. He may get something better than us. You’re right.

Antoine Walter:

No, it’s actually a fun thing. I learned from my very first Sales Director, he was saying, you know, the day I understand an application, I cannot sell it anymore. So

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

He was actually, you

Antoine Walter:

Know, when we were trying to explain him an application, it would just start, you know, just showing lalalalala. No, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. So it sounds silly, but it’s true when you master technical knowledge within this industry, you’re a bit like a hammer looking for nails and every nail looks just like another nail and you would just hammer it down with, if it’s nanofiltration, you would just see another filtration everywhere when maybe at that specific place. Another technology would have been a better suit. But what I would like to understand in your approach as well is you mentioned that you’ve used your podcast as a way to do competitive intelligence. So I fully understand that you cover a lot of membrane topics and I get the digitization aspect of things which comes quite often in your various interviews. But there’s one thing which to me is intriguing is this interest and this this focus, you put on the investment and on the funding within this industry, because that sounds a bit further. Yeah. A bit farther from your, your core membrane topic.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

It’s a very good question. And then, I mean, it’s kind of probing questions. If you feel something that I have, which is, I mean, I had this because in my job I was doing the TSN D the D component is development components, which means I was working with large end-users and also some big OEMs to try to develop a membrane that did not exist in the market to develop that membrane. I need to understand why it’s valuable for them bridge this value. Try to get some funding internally, go to the, on the developers, product core supply chain, get the product, ship it to the customer, do the pilot test and bring the product to the market launches. Good. I see this process and I was interested, let’s say, I mean, everyone would ask me when you work with a big company at all, but whatever the company you said, why not me?

I mean, I have ideas minus coming to the entrepreneurial part and you try to ask some questions. And I actually, this is from where I had to interview those people, because I have seen, let’s say the pipeline from getting an idea, realize, and I think it’s in the product. And then I know the product, what does mean in technically in the markets and from the marketing side selling points. But there is one part that I have no idea about it, which is the funding parts, the money. I mean, there’s so many ideas in garage developers. If they are lucky, they get bought by big fishes, big companies. If they have no funding for them, it’s money is oxygen. They will not get to the market. For me. It was interesting to the first question that I had. I remember I hadn’t put a beep. I said, those people who invest in the water startup company, do they have something in their mind differently than the people who invest in it or other companies?

So I craft a couple of questions and I was looking in Google, is there actually copies of venture for water technology? And I find, yes, actually there is small companies are money. They invest only in water technology. And I was looking to their profile. They have bagger on water technology. And I said, okay, why not? Because those people, they may bring something again for marketing and sellers. So I’ve been working with so marketing answer inside the company. Also, they are interested on looking to the biggest traits because you are selling X technology. So you have no guarantee in three, four, five years, what you are selling will be cannibalized with different technology. So marketing or sales people, they always have an eye on outside what’s going on. And if there is some small fish, they will catch it, buy it, grow it, sell it to the markets. And that small company it’s most of the time, as I said, it’s, it needs a funding. And this is why, how I get to that part. I would Spencer interview in those people, because at the end of the day, you will bridge an information about new technology is coming up to the markets. This is why they invest on it. And all those information is valuable for the, let’s say the folks that are working with.

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Antoine Walter:

So that gives you the perfect opportunity to take my question out of the fridge. You mentioned that your current topic, which is this solvent, none of filtration might be something that someone might develop in the future. And I remember one interview you had with with Wim Audenaert, where you were exploring how to transition from academics to entrepreneurship, and you just explained us this investment aspect of things. So is there any chance that in a close future in a midterm future, you take that topic of solvent tolerance and a filtration. You make a company out of that you leverage everything you’ve learned from your podcasting venture and yeah. You build that next big thing.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

I don’t know, actually, I mean, I do have interests that it’s more working on something here couple of years, but not in an SDF. And also was one of the reasons that I step out to working with a company that’s only for the university, the university one part to finish this project. Cause I see the value of it. But also I’m working on something in palliative because they see the value of it as startup. So back to your question. Yes. So all this exercise that I’m doing with the CTOC or all the people that are invited, I learned from them something very interesting. And then all this learning your rights, it will, for sure, sometime in the future, I will try to let’s say implement what I learned from them. And then just back to your point to the investments, I mean, there’s interesting when you look to, let’s say the new startup company in water technology, and then if you do the interview with them, most of them in garage or whatever they’re coming from, when they get purchased, those three people, they sit in front of them.

There is tech people who has very strong on technical. They check all their technical details, patents and everything. If they make sense. And they add on top of that, the guts feeling whether this technology will make it in the real industrial scale. And you know that, I mean, you, for example, more than me in MBR, if they bring you something on MBR development in garage, patented and sophisticated, you will look to this and you with your gut feeling what’s going on in the market. You said, ah, it has some chance to be in on that. And there is financial guy who looks at the numbers. One, two, three, four years. They give on the gut-feeling and they give the ranking. And then the third person is the legal one. I check all the papers and if everything is fine, then this garage Idea will have some oxygen, which is at the end of day, which is money.

And then they will get out of the market. So this learning, you may learn it if you are lucky with the big corporates, but also you may learn it alone. For example, me and you, you may learn it with a podcast by doing a podcast. And I mean, my experience when I discuss with those people in the water, six are they’re very friendly. They are open-minded they share all those insights. I mean, we can learn so many things from what podcasts and specifically your podcast. I mean, I’ve been listening to some episode, it’s a very interesting to me is a gold of the information that extracts from those people. Entrepreneur, as you said, coming from the university, they can learn so much from you and they can get those things. They can apply them. You may not find them in the internet reason, but it’s a good place to get this insight. I think we are

Antoine Walter:

Somewhat cracking a secret here. You should all start a podcast because you know, I quite often refer to what I’m personally doing. Like it’s my personal MBA or my, my water MBA, if you want to call it that way. And I think you’re fully, right. This industry is absolutely keen on sharing information on exchanging thoughts, content, and building on each other’s shoulders. Yeah. I think the only thing you have to start at some point you have to push the record button or to start discussing with people. And actually you can also forget the full podcasting element and replace it by just discussing with people. And I think that’s sometimes not sometimes that’s always the best way to learn about a topic. It’s to find someone that knows much more about that topic than yourself and to just raise him some questions. So it’s very funny that the way you described the way you see your podcast venture, because again, I feel like I’m seeing myself in a kind of a mirror.

So it’s really interesting. There must be some truth here if we feel the same on that. But actually, you know, there’s one thing that people ask me and we’re have the shittiest answer in the world. So let me check with you. If you have better ones, because people ask me, you know, you’ve been interviewing those people and this and that. So you should know the future. What’s the future. And I have no clue. What’s the future. I can maybe tell there’s a trend on these. There’s a trend on that, but I don’t know the future. What about you? Do you know the future of, of membranes? Do you know the future of digitization?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

The people who really forecast and see the future, they have that answered by this COVID COVID has changed everything. All the numbers have been crushed out itself. If you have a guarantee that’s called, we will disappear completely. And there’s no COVID 20, 21. Then the future. I think just the simple answer. I don’t have any, let’s say prediction on the future, but I do have one thing which is, I mean, in my experience, and then you can also share the same idea with the MOOC’s water. Technology is not like an IT industry. I mean IT electronic industry. So when I was working in the past, I had a colleagues who work in the electronic business and they changed their portfolio every three years, which means the R&D is working like hell, the manufacturing, they recalibrate everything. So they changed their portfolio every three years, the software, I think the same thing. They change their portfolio every year, maybe. So the water hardware technology, we’re still working with 20 years of membrane. So it takes a long time, Wes water and dissemination to really get new technology, which will cannibalize old technology or even the new portfolio. It takes long time to replace the old portfolio. So the point is water technology. It takes time, at least in my experience is not very fast. You cannot predict what’s going on in, in a short period of time of three or five years. So that’s the bottom line. I would say

Antoine Walter:

Your membrane analogy is interesting there because you know, when I interviewed Graham peers well I was bluffed by him from the beginning to the end of the interview. That was really, I was talking of, of MBA. That was my MBA membranes. But what was surprising to me, which I didn’t know is that he was mentioning that, you know, 20 years ago he was going to customers and telling them, you know, you could be doing this and that with membranes and customer would simply laugh at him and say, no, that’s never, no one is ever going to pay for that. It’s never going to be a real who wants to membranes, who needs membranes. And that it was just 20 years ago and no membranes are quite everywhere. So it’s true that sometimes the same product is still around, but still when there’s a good Idea and the time has come for that Idea, then everything can be changed in five years. Still within this conservative industry,

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Ion exchange is more than thing is more than 40 years. Okay. Then he can’t do that to the nuclear station yet. They still use the ion exchange to treat the water distillation. For instance, you need to fight with the regulatory in pharma industry. They more so than they use distillation. However, Pharmacopia in Europe. They recently allowed to use a very small solicit Japan. They, they allowed to use the resource most and other technology. I think it’s more than five years ago, the us as well, but still those pharma industry, they still use distillation, which handed years old. So yes, for some type of industry like this desalination or wastewater, they can be flexible, but there are some rigid industry. As I said, like pharma industry, like nuclear power. I mean the way how treat the water to get 18 mega Ohm tats. I mean, they don’t tolerate any membranes. Good, but there is a chance, 0.01% failure? No. Period, there is no discussion on the table. So I agree with you in some type of industry, yes. You can convince the people to adopt your technology because it’s fancy, interesting, lower energy consumption and smaller footprint, et cetera. But there are some rigid industry that’s yeah. It’s difficult to move them from one industry the other.

Antoine Walter:

I just alluded to Graham and I like to get your subject to feedback. Now, out of your 28 interviews, did you have a guest that blew your mind that told you something that you were like, Oh, I had no clue about that. Did that happen to you? Is chill dropping element.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Actually in every episode I learned so many things. And then for me Aquaporin was very interesting.

Antoine Walter:

I have to tell you, that’s the one where I didn’t understand anything. I was feeling so stupid and I really listened to it. And the second time I listened to it, I understood a bit, but still that must have been very technical too technical. Sorry I interrupted you.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yeah, no, that’s fine. I mean, that’s the point Antoine, the way how, I mean, for every episode it takes me minimum, I think round five hours up to 13 hours preparation. So I studied the technology from the homepage, the case studies, and then study the background of the cast and then have some kind of charts before the episode. So I prepare is like, I’m going to the customers. And then I try to, because I know there are so many information that I can find in the internet, but there are so many information that you need to do your exercise to get to those information. So the point is, I know in some episode it’s maybe hard to follow because you may need to do some homework to look exactly what’s the technology looks like

Antoine Walter:

Don’t take me wrong. I wasn’t saying it was hard to follow to the opposite. I mean, you were breaking down a concept, which is incredibly complex when you’re not a membrane professional, which am not. And I was able to understand some bits because you did this pedagogy get forward because you were synthesizing the answers of your counterparts. So don’t take me wrong. It’s I’m not even criticizing at all. It’s just, I was like thinking, you know, there’s this full world within the water industry, which I simply see from so far away. So yeah, sorry.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yeah. That’s that’s, I mean, it should be easy. And that’s also, this is kind of exercise that I have that I’m trying to improve every time, which is try to get the information from the guests as digestible as for most of the folks, because you are a hundred percent, right. Sometime I lean too much to a technical part rather than the, make it a little bit simple. So that’s also one thing that I’m trying to work on. But back to your question, it’s, Aquaporin that’s, for me, it was very interesting because I am a believer that the interest in technology for me in the future, those technology who combined to discipline the chemistry and biology, it’s like aquaporin for instance, someone who can copy the nature and they combine it with engineering and chemistry does very interesting technology. However, it’s very tough how to produce it and get reliable quality or liable product in the markets.

That’s challenging, but, but I’m believer in those things. And also it gets me out of my comfort zone. I’m not an expert in biology. You see, that’s the thing that I struggle with, but it’s okay. Again, it’s a learning for me. And also at the end of the discussion with him, I was taking so much notes. I was Googling. I was looking for the book here, came into me. So, so many it’s like he gave me another exercise. So for me back to the equation, that was one of the gases read. I learned a lot and I spent so much time afterwards to learn what he meant when he discussed something with me.

Antoine Walter:

It’s actually for everyone listening to this right now, if you want, you have a link to that episode, I just checked his dad, the Smartwater solutions episode, number 18 about aquaporin. And I would recommend to listen to it because it blew my mind really in the sense that there’s a few podcasts where I remember what I was doing and where, and that one, I was in the train between Schaffhausen and my home in Basel. It’s a one hour traveling in the train and the episode is roughly one hour and it was listening to like, I understand the words, but the link between the words, but, but it was very interesting. Don’t get me wrong. I know that the description I’m making of the episode is now terrible, but really it was interesting. And I really listened to it a second time. One way there was running because I have to tell you as well, that you’ve been my running coach for quite a lot of runs a bit less recently, which is also something I’d like to get from you is did you pause your venture? Hopefully not stop it because that would be a pity.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Yes. I mean, you phrase it correctly. It’s I paused because I Borden on this team with with live in university and then try to digest. I mean, it’s a different spectrum right now. You get to the level to make it a nano membrane and then trying to understand the chemistry exactly inside it. And it’s very, it’s a small, I mean, a resolution that you need to search in. So I’m spending quite time with the team. And then in the meantime, I’m trying to get back to the Episodes so sooner I will launch some episode, but right now let’s say the priorities kind of shifted from publishing some episode to actually publish in a contest at the end of the day. I mean, I, the funny thing, when I joined here, the university for me is the professor is like you and me and everyone, they broadcast their content.

The only difference is they broadcast their content once per six months in terms of paper and article. And then we brought our content in terms of episode, you know, in audio episode. So they also brought something, what they found in the lab within six months or one year with other community globally. And then they followed them and then to broadcast this content, it consumes so much time. This is why I’m, I’m really hooked by those people. But the meantime and trying to get back to the podcast, because for me, the podcast is also right now, it’s the only way to keep me online with water market or water industry. Cause they get only papers. People who fantasize about very good technology and it was in the future. 90% of them, they will fall in the trash. But the good thing is I’m keeping with the, yeah, the podcast is it’s like for me, it’s the, it’s a nice window to get to learn what’s going on in the markets. And luckily we have people like you who really bring those insights to us to learn from them.

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Antoine Walter:

You know what? You’re making a good analogy between the articles and the, and the podcast. I sometimes see a good podcast episode, which is not always the case, but, but the good podcast episode as a summary article, it doesn’t go in the depth of each of the articles. But if you read a summary article, you get an overview of a topic and you know that there are other more in depth papers that you can just explore if you want to dig into the topic. And it’s true that because of the format of the podcast, you could never go to the very bottom and start explaining chemical reactions or how a curve looks like. And I mean, that’s not the right medium, but probably to get a first glimpse of the topic. It is a good mean. I think so that’s my analogy. But does that mean that you you’re writing some articles right now?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Right? I mean, if you would ask me, what are you doing actually, what is the thing that are doing in this PhD project? I’m trying to answer two questions. The first, why the commercial water, nanofiltration and commercial, organic solvent, none of iteration fail when you use them in water contaminated with solvent. The second question that I need to answer, which is, okay, what are the criteria that the nanofiltration needs to fulfill in order to be solvent tolerant? Nanofiltration? So those are, let’s say two fundamental questions that I’m trying to search on and to answer. And then you mentioned an article been working on one article and actually it’s one inspiration from whim, been discussing with whim. And then the article, I was just discussing with one of my colleagues in Leuven and she finished last year, her PhD, and then she find the ideas.

Very good idea. And then we work together on it. And the first article was kind of a GPS, the GPS for the academia to know the sexist criteria that’s enables their membrane to be upscaled in the industry because so many universities, they developed reverse osmosis for water application, but actually there us or MBR, but there are some success criteria that if you fulfill those secretaries criteria, you have more chance that your membrane be upscaled. You will get funding from the company and stuff like that. So we are trying to this is kind of the first article to understand the success criteria from the industry to use the success criteria on filtrating, all the measurement that has been developed in academia. I mean, not all of them, but in a couple of years, and then give some kind of guidance as an article for the academia to share with them.

It’s like a bridge between academia and industry. This is what the industry they would like to get as performance of the product in the real market. And also the way how you develop the membrane. For instance, you can have very fancy Idea and nice Idea, how to synthesize the membrane with toxic chemicals. And at the end of the day, you get the, you have a big organization in Europe, which is REACH and this rich organization in Europe, they said, Oh no, you cannot produce this member because you have this toxic chemical. And then, okay, then this Kim, the, someone can copy the recipient and produce it in China and bring this back to Europe. Then the holder search, which is in Europe is like waste of time, waste of money. So we are trying to discuss those kind of things that is not aware. There’s people in academia. They have no idea about those things, but someone coming from the industry, I know those things because whenever there’s discussion to develop a new membrane for the markets, you bring the people from the Hins, who knows what’s reach in Europe requirements. So they stop you before thinking about something, they will stop this monomer, or this polymer is not possible to produce in Europe. Then think of some alternative environmental friendly or et cetera. And then we can develop that product.

Antoine Walter:

That sounds like a really fascinating topic. And I would have so many follow-up questions here, but if I do that, I have to take another hour or two to go through the topic. But you know, I was taking one question and putting it in the fridge before if you’re into that topic, I would say, when you consider that you’ve reached a point where you’re ready for publishing something and you think of maybe making an audio version of what you publish. I’d be very glad to have you on the microphone and to make a deep dive into the topic with great pleasure. So consider it like a suspended, open invitation whenever you want. I don’t invite you as a podcaster. I invite you as the specialist for a solvent tolerant nanofiltration. Thanks a lot. I have a last question for the podcast, or now I’d like to go back to your beginning.

You know, when you put something on YouTube or when you put something in on Facebook, the algorithm likes you a bit and says, Hey, it’s your first thing, but I’m going to show it to a couple of people so that you get some views and some people reacting to what you push online when you first publish a podcast. Well, there’s absolutely no algorithm at all at any point. And that could sit there for 10 years with nobody ever listening to it. So that to me was a, you know, quite hard at the beginning because I was so proud of my one, two, three first episodes. And and to see that if I was not actively pushing them everywhere and telling everyone to listen to it, well, just nothing would happen. So how did you experience that? What was it different to you when you publish your first episodes? Did you instantly feel traction or at the end of the day, that wasn’t even your goal. You were there to make competency of intelligence and to give some content to your sales colleagues. So anyways, your goal was achieved.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

No, I mean, I had the same feeling like you, I mean, you, you do something and then it’s like your products. I mean, the first time that it’s your product, it’s not someone else’s product is your product as you bring in the market. And there is so much ego in stake, saves people. They don’t like is you get, I had the same feeling. I ask all my friends in Lincoln in, I ask them, okay. I mean, first thing is the circle that they developed for the customize it. Okay. I’m developing something. Okay. Since to the customer, I sent it to my colleagues. That’s the first surrounding. And then, you know exactly, as you said, you wait, okay, one day, is there someone else? Okay. I ask the friends that I have, and then it asks them to push them in LinkedIn and your lights. I mean, this point that you mentioned, I was not aware at the beginning.

And then I get to this point, which is the podcast is not like Facebook is not like it’s either someone reached them or not. You know? And then someone said, it’s always starts with the first listener, you know? And then you said, okay, the first podcast one tomorrow’s two tomorrow, three, and then it’s right. It’s right. To, for good test. It’s okay. Try to focus on the list that you have. Because at the beginning I put 10 guests, 10 potential guests. I put the schedule of the, of those people. And I had a, I mean, I learned from one person is Brian Rose. He is the one who give us some indication about podcasts. He said, Hakim, don’t procrastinate. Put your content. Don’t adjust too much. You are from academia. The bad thing with People coming from academia. They procrastinate. They want to put something perfect.

Who cares? I mean, he tells me, I know he, I agree with him. The first episode that I listened is from Joe Rogan was thousand 200 something. I have no idea about this, the first 500. So maybe my good listeners will be when I reach handle 20 something. So the point is not to focus at the beginning. How many people you grow it just to keep going producing. And this is, this is what I not commit. And I really, I appreciate that. You didn’t stop. Don’t stop. Just continue and collect the bad feedback. That’s how you grow. The good is nice. Okay. But you need to collect those bad feedback, work on them and try to remove your ego from that. Because it’s nothing about you is, is the product that you put in the markets. It’s, something is bad, is bad. Try to improve it and go on. I learned so many things from this because as I said, the first time is not someone else’s product. If they blame, they don’t blame me. I need to blame supply chain or someone. It’s my product. I need to be humble, humiliated, and then learn from all my mistakes and continue

Antoine Walter:

Because I mean, we are one hour. If someone is listening to that I hope he likes it so I can crack a secret. I used to have another podcast in French where I was sharing some of the thoughts I had because before this COVID everything, I was traveling quite a lot. And so I was seeing some stuff left and right. And whatever that, what is inspiring me in terms of sales, I was sharing it. So anyways, I think it’s not anything for people listening to this right now, because it’s a podcast in French. And with the pandemic, the first lockdown I stopped, there was one week where I didn’t release an episode. And then one week goes and the week after it comes and you’re like, well, Oh, really didn’t publish last week. So I can still not publish that week. And there was no followup episode. That was my last episode. So I try to never break the chain. And I think it’s a commitment which I have with the people listening, but also with myself to not break the chain because I know myself and I’m probably not as resilient as you are. And I know, if I’m stopping, chances are, I’m never starting again. So

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

No that’s too it’s you need to keep the momentum. That’s the most important thing in a podcast is to keep the momentum. But I mean, as I said, for me, I’ve been going through couple of stuff recently. I mean, from last year and then the move to win, this it’s kind of priority. I mean, you have this experience when you work on different projects, sometimes there is priority. You need to hold something, hold on. You not necessarily need to kill this project, but just hold that project and keep going. The other cause makes 3 cents. Yeah.

Antoine Walter:

That has been awesome to me to discuss with you in these deep dive, but I have to close it at some point because I have to be cautious of your time as well. I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions. Okay.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

So in that last section, I keep referring to that, but it’s so true. I try to keep the questions short so that we can keep the answer short and don’t worry. Emma was the one which makes it much longer than it should. So here’s my first question. What is the most exciting project you’ve been working on and why

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Do the preparation of my own podcasts. The reason is because there was no blueprint. There was no someone before me in Waterloo bridge, this technical kind of insights. And I improved them based on honest listeners feedback, really bad feedback. I’m trying to improve them. That’s the most exciting and the reason why, how do you collect those feedbacks? I ask one by one, I have emails. I really follow them. And whenever I know someone, I pitched him, my podcast, he listened to it. I asked him again, so this is how I follow up with people. That’s a very valuable advice to me. So thanks for that one.

What’s your favorite part of your current job it’s learning? And let’s say the ages of the breakthrough technology that is, that are developed in academia, you know, and try to fantasize based on my gut feeling experience with a dose kind of breakthrough technology will make it or not. That’s the dentist in part, what is the trend to watch out for in the water industry? Oh, two water industry. I would say it’s a, as I said, it’s technology, that’s like, aquaporin, I mean, I’ve seen technology really try to combine biotechnology, bioengineering technology and chemistry. I mean, those kind of technology. I, I mean, I’m, I’m strong believer on those kind of technologies, like cooperating, for instance, I had [inaudible] from leak tech on that microphone and he was teasing something that they would produce, which goes into that direction. So I guess that’s now a second sign that you’re sending me now with this trends on this combination that I should try to understand that the in and out of the, that combination.

So I think that’s maybe a, a right point of time for me to listen to that aquaporin episode for a third time. We, we should, at this time, I understand everything. So yeah, I think I’d take a note for myself on that one. What is the thing you care about the most when you’re working on a new project and which is the thing you care the least in the past, when I was working, I care so much about technical, economical value of that technology. It needs to make some technical, economical sense. The thing that I’m thinking less, which is how to bring it to the market or how to set it, because I have confidence on people who can do that job. This is why I’m, I was not thinking, how are we going to just say no, I don’t think about whether they will buy it or last on how we will sell it. But I care most about really the techno economic value of that technology. If it makes sense or not.

Antoine Walter:

Do you have sources to recommend to keep up with water and wastewater market trends?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

I mean, recently I only use LinkedIn. Let’s say the platform that’s whenever. Cause I have, I mean you and so many people, when I scroll every time I find something about water, that’s the easy, friendly platform that I’m using,

Antoine Walter:

Which, sorry, I mentioned that I’m always the one that makes it longer. Do you think we’ve reached the maximum that we can take out? Because when I was first scrolling, LinkedIn, maybe five years ago, it was just, you know, a job platform. So people wouldn’t really do gets at content and nowadays it’s, it turns out that there’s so much content that we are reaching the same points sometimes then with Facebook or Instagram, then the feed is limitless. You could be reading stories about water day in, day out and stopping to work at all. So you think there is still some means to stand out in that jungle and to sort out what’s interesting. And what’s maybe a bit less.

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

Absolutely. I mean, did, is I don’t want it to spoil the things that I’m working on, which is actually in this direction, but there is a need, there is a really need, I mean, it just can give you an indication. I mean, if you look to other industry, they are very well organized in terms of the content, just content, deep technical content, marketing contents, and then also selling content, selling points. I mean, they are very organized. You can name it, electronic it and others, but when it comes to water, I don’t think we have very strong platforms and then yeah. Place where we can get those insights.

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Antoine Walter:

So you might be helping with the curation in the future, hopefully. Okay. That’s a teaser more than a spoiler, but I’m teased. So last question. Would you have someone to recommend that we should definitely have on that same microphone?

Abdelhakim El Fadil:

He’s Hertz, he’s a city or blue foot membrane based in Belgium. He was my mentor and I’ve been working with him a lot. He has his kind of startup company is very interested in what they’re doing those guys. And then, yeah, definitely. I would recommend it. And then maybe the other guy is Mark housekeepers. This one is like an outlier. I mean, this one is, is like the rotor for water industry. Everyone knows Marcos givers. I mean, that’s also second person that’s I would two for the price of one. Awesome. Well, thanks for that Hakeem. That was a pleasure to have you on the, on the show last almost housekeeping topic you you’ve alluded to LinkedIn. What is the best place for people to follow you? Linkedin? Probably for me, LinkedIn, yes. Linkedin would be a place where I can, what I also published.

I mean, podcast episode and then yeah, but I do most of the activities as well. And obviously for the one listening to these, if you scroll in there in the episode notes, your you’ll find the links to, I can spot cast too, because I think, yeah, if you like somehow what I’m doing and I think, I hope you do because after over an hour, if you don’t like it, you’re kind of measure shifts, I guess. But if you lack that, definitely you have to listen to what Hakim is doing, because it’s like the same, but understood rates because it goes deeper into the topics it’s really, it’s, it’s available to me a Bible, a bit more oriented on, on membranes. And I do, but still a Bible. No, I mean, definitely. I mean it just one thing to conclude here, Antwan it’s thanks a lot for invites and very good inside that you are trying to do.

And the hard part is you are keeping the momentum and then the reward is immense. And then, I mean, you can, you know, that, that my experience is I think the attention span of the audience is nuts. I mean, it’s crazy. When you look at the podcast, most listens worldwide. It’s three hours, including me. I listened to podcast three hours. Really. I don’t care about it’s. My time is three hours, but I do listen to the post. Even your podcasts, if it’s more than one hour, I mean, I really am hooked because all the things that you try to extract from the guest as a water expert, I get them. So it’s my attention to you either the first five minutes, as you said, from the summary, if I go or not. So if I go and go forward, thanks a lot. Well, thanks you. And yes, you, as soon as as a researcher and not as a podcaster.

Other Episodes:

FREDsense: Revolutionizing Water Quality Monitoring with Biosensor Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 7 May 2025

Swirltex: Revolutionizing Wastewater Treatment with Bubbly Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 30 April 2025

Blue Foot Membranes: The Next Evolution in Water Filtration

By Antoine Walter | 16 April 2025

Echo River Capital: Pioneering the Future of Water Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 3 April 2025

1001 Fontaines: Engineering Sustainable Water Access Through Social Entrepreneurship

By Antoine Walter | 22 March 2025

Amazon’s Water Footprint: Tech Giant’s Quest for Water Sustainability

By Antoine Walter | 19 March 2025

Turing: The AI Revolution Quenching the Water Industry’s Thirst for Innovation

By Antoine Walter | 26 February 2025

Altillion: Pioneering Digital Intelligence for Water Asset Management

By Antoine Walter | 6 February 2025

Flocean: Pioneering Ocean-Based Water Solutions

By Antoine Walter | 15 January 2025

Botanical Water Technologies: Harvesting Liquid Gold from Plants

By Antoine Walter | 4 December 2024

The post How to do Competitive Intelligence in Plain Sight and Share it with Everyone? appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

The European Water Tech Accelerator aims to boost European water start-ups to drive sustainable growth in the global water sector. 

This episode is part of my series on (successful) Water Entrepreneurship – check it out!

What we covered:

How Environment, Economy, and Society shall work together to achieve a triple win, usually known as Sustainable Development

How Finance and Venture Capital shall be much more involved if we aim at a successful outcome

The strengths European start-ups usually draw on, but also the common weaknesses they share

How Market Positioning, Business Model, Go-To-Market Strategy, and Mindset often are the Water Industry Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Which type of company is the rarest whilst presenting the most potential

The ecosystem differences between North-America, Europe, and Asia

How radical differentiation and transposition innovation might be applied to the Water Sector

Hypergrowth as a strategy in the Water Industry

New ways to tackle the innovation value chain

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

Teaser:

Resources:

Send your warm regards to Gaetane on LinkedIn

Check the European Water Tech Accelerator’s Page

is on Linkedin

Antoine Walter on LinkedIn

Infographic: Entrepreneurship in the Water Industry

Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

Hi Gaetane, Welcome to the show.

Gaetane Suzenet:

Thank you, Antoine. Thank you very much. That’s very nice of you to have me on your program. Well, first of all, you know, on this very special day, I would like to wish everyone, you know, a happy world water day. I know probably it’s not going to be broadcasted on that day, but,

Antoine Walter:

But it’s important to mention that yeah, we are recording actually on the world water day. So let’s make something which is at the level of that event. Because you know, it’s one day in the year, hopefully they are more than one day in the year where people put water in the spot. But if there’s one it’s today,

Gaetane Suzenet:

It’s today indeed. Yes. So hopefully, you know, it, it should be everyday, as you say, but let’s say break, you know, at least one day today.

Antoine Walter:

Absolutely. It’s good to have you on the show because you have a profile, which is rare, at least from my end of the water sector, because many previous guests of that podcast have mentioned regulations, finance to be very important drivers to this industry. But you’re the very first guest I have, which is directly touching these topics. Does that mean that because you know the regulation because you’re shaping the regulation that, you know, the future of this industry?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Well, thank you Antoine. I wish, you know, I would, but at least, you know, what I’m doing or trying to do is to shape the future, you know, for the best for the water industry. So it doesn’t mean that I know it, I wish, you know, I would, but what I’ve been trying to do over the last 25 years, it’s very much, you know, shaping the future and thinking forward and not backward, you know, bringing the water sector into the future. Very modestly. We have very good people in the water industry of course. But yeah, my objective has always been to make sure that we have, you know, the tools and instruments for the future. And since you mentioned finance, finance was actually the area, which I think was really missing in our discussion. We talk about regulation. We talk about technology. We talk about infrastructure. We talk about engineering, but for me, the missing link has been finance. And that’s why I have decided to raise this agenda for the water industry.

Antoine Walter:

How did you actually do that? You mentioned that 25 years, which I wouldn’t have spontaneously because you know, I have sometimes to be a gentleman, but now, that’s, you’ve raised it. Can you just swiftly guide us through your steps as we understand these elements of the finance, which is going to be our deep dive, but also the regulation aspect shaping the industry. I love that. That way. Sorry. Now I shut up.

Gaetane Suzenet:

No, that’s absolutely fine. Don’t worry. I’ve never had actually an agenda. You know, when I got into the water sector and I’ve always been driven by the endgame, I wanted to make sure that I contributed to societal objectives, now it sounds, you know, a bit like, you know, very esoteric and, you know, like, and everybody could say that, but that’s true. In fact, and when I decided I would work in the water sector, I would always picked up opportunities in which I could be useful, shape the future and make sure that there is a win-win situation for everyone. So I’ve never got into, for instance, you know, the public private debate. I think that’s ridiculous because we all work for the same objective and I had the pleasure and opportunity to work for the UK water industry. So I always in the best position, because as you know, the UK water industry is public and private.

So really for me, the objectives were very much, you know, environmental, economic and societal. So the sustainability agenda for me was actually a very good framework to work within. And when I say economics, for me, it’s not, you know, the environment against the economy or society against the environment for me, it’s everything. So I was never afraid of saying that if you make money in the water industry, then it’s good. And I was never afraid that you can actually already consigned the fact that you can make money because this money can be injected into investment and you can make money while providing water, safe water to people. You can improve wellbeing, you can improve health. And at the same time you can also improve the environment. So there’s no contradiction between the phrase trans there’s no contradiction between public and private. For me, we all working towards the same objective and that’s, I know I’m not doing my CV here, which I think would be boring, but it’s just to say that alongside these 25 years, for me, it was very much what has driven the things that it was very meaningful to me.

And that’s, what’s driven my carrier up to now.

Antoine Walter:

Well, that gives us a smooth transition into our deep dive because actually one of the thrusts of sustainable development is this economical aspect. And in your latest venture. So the European water tech accelerator, you are aiming at bringing that element of finance and probably let’s use the big word venture capital inside the water industry. And I’d like to start, you know, for the muggles like me, which don’t know that magical word of finance. So let’s start by just defining what is the European water tech accelerator?

Gaetane Suzenet:

The European water tech accelerator was actually set up last year. And with my co-founder Jacob Tompkins, we decided to set it up because we could see a gap in Europe, despite the fact that you have very good organizations, excellent organizations wanting, you know, to move the water agenda forward. What we’ve seen as a gap is you have a lot of startups, but these startups can scale up. I mean, you haven’t seen yet, unless you are able to name one company, which has been able to scale up and get to the Google same arena. We don’t see any. So we’ve seen a gap in this, and that’s why we with Jacob, we have decided to set up the European Water Tech Accelerator for this particular reason. We want to accelerate just a few companies. So not 150 companies, rather, you know, 15 companies, which will become European Water Champions.

Antoine Walter:

So that’s the mission. And how do you intend to achieve that? That’s a good question. That’s a broad question.

Gaetane Suzenet:

Very broad question. I think, you know, one thing that we have noticed in the water sector is that we have very good engineers. We have very good tech. What we are missing is entrepreneurs, and I’m not going to be very popular when I say that. And the finance side of things. It’s starting, but it’s not there yet. And what we have noticed since you’re mentioning finance is that venture capitalists are still sort of reluctant to invest in the water sector. Funny enough, you know, I’m talking about this in today’s time, I’m doing a talk also to talk about, you know, investment in digital water. And I was looking at the portfolio of a very well-known investment fund in the water sector in Europe. There were set up in 2006 and they’ve done only seven investments in 14 years. 15 years. Yes. So that gives you the gap that we have two close between the startups and the venture capitalist, or I would say, you know, the financial world,

Antoine Walter:

I think there’s a lot to uncover in what you just said. First. I fully agree with you with that aspect of entrepreneurship. I think that’s the drawback of having an industry, which is full of engineers. We probably are very prone to the technical side, but if you have engineers everywhere in every role, they have to have their limits as well. And I guess there’s a broad limit on the entrepreneurship side. And of course the finance side of things. And what’s, you’re saying with the investment fund brings me back to a discussion I was having on that same microphone with Nicola Lei Ravello and he was mentioning the water sector is a very good investment for the sturdy long-term investments with low risk. And I guess that’s on the other end of that spectrum. If you’re into venture capital, that means that you are looking at something probably more risky, but also which can bring much more potential is that a reason why venture capital wasn’t that much involved in water, or do you see other barriers to their involvement?

Gaetane Suzenet:

This is certainly true that there’s this issue about the return on investment that venture capitalists are looking are usually looking for. So that has been a reason indeed, but there’s also, I think it’s not just a return on investment. There is also the issue of the market uptake, despite the fact that you’ve seen, you know, where every single line probably today we are going to see that being the world water today that water, you know, is a global issue. Water is life water is, you know, like the most important thing, you know, and the major risks, according to the world water forum, or, you know, where is the finance, where is the market,

Antoine Walter:

So, you’re saying that they’re not walking the talk?

Gaetane Suzenet:

No. And, and despite the fact that we keep saying that water and I’m sure you’ve been to all these conferences, you know, like where we could graduate ourselves by saying, you know, like that water will be the next thing I’ve said. Also that water would be the next investment, you know, area. I think, you know, there’s if, if the market is not ready yet for these innovations that are coming onto the market, then we have a problem. I think, you know, for successful innovation investment strategy, you need three things. You need entrepreneurs, you need scalability, which is market, and you need the tech. And for me, these are the three things which will make the water sector successful in the future, including not just, you know, like the big players, who are very successful. And in fact, if you look at I’m diverging a bit now, but if you look at the return rate for big water companies, they are pretty good. So now what we need to work on is how innovation is going to be attractive enough for this investment funds. Generally speaking, not just for VCs, but generally speaking. So they need to trust the fact that entrepreneurs will be able to sell their tech or their product to the market. And that the market is confident in the product as well.

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Antoine Walter:

Is that where you step in as a startup accelerator? How,

Gaetane Suzenet:

Yeah, no, I think we need to work. I mean, obviously our core activity is to accelerate companies. So practically speaking, what we do is we are very selective. So having worked in an investment fund and working with investment funds, we are very selective. So that’s why we’re not going to accelerate many companies. And we do a due diligence and we have many conversations with the CEOs, with the team. We look at the tech and we look at the potential for scalability. Once we’ve done that, we work with the team on a program, which is tailor-made. So it’s not one size fits all. And we look at what areas we need to work on. So it can be finance, you know, how to prepare a pitch for investors. It can be how to pitch to the market. It can be the market positioning because sometimes many startups don’t know where they stand, you know, to this positioning against their competitors.

It can be looking at how to structure the team. It can be, you know, what kind of partnerships would be most useful to scale up quickly? Because the core of our activity is not just scaling up it’s to scale up quickly and back to your question about, you know, the Ray very long time, that’s precisely what we want to work on. You know, it’s how you can reduce the time where the investor is actually going to see that it is profitable, not just, you know, generating revenues, but also being profitable. And then they can plan an exit in the time that usually is part of their strategy, investment strategy. Yeah.

Antoine Walter:

What you’re describing here sounds to me like those companies would be having probably a golden Idea, but they would be at, at a stage, which is previous to the product market fit. They don’t necessarily have that product market fit yet, which means the market traction isn’t really there already. And you would be supporting them to get that market traction. So we are really speaking of early stage companies do I translate that right?

Gaetane Suzenet:

You’re absolutely right. We are also considering this type of companies. We are also considering companies which are already generating revenues, so which have already market traction and want to scale up. They want to scale up, but they don’t know how to do it. So they have a proven product if you like, they have already clients, but now they need to go to the next step. So they would need money. They need a strategy. And they would probably need to look at the team and believe me or not. But this type of companies are not really there yet. I mean, we can’t find many like this. So you have early stage, you have lead stage, but the ones in the middles, which I think, you know, and that’s a personal view are the best. Let’s say, you know, the best future, these are much more difficult to find.

Antoine Walter:

There’s again, so much things that I’d like to uncover. And what you just said, but regarding this, let’s say early stage scale-up or late stage startup, depending on how we want to call them, is it something which you would call as a very European to have those companies which are missing or is it something which you see worldwide? The reason why I’m asking that is that on that same microphone I was discussing with the elemental accelerator. Well, not the accelerator, but with Kimberly Baker. And I had this impression that from a North American perspective, there’s maybe a better network or it’s maybe more advanced or let’s again, use the big name. They might be in, in advance compared to what we do here. And it sounds to me like there’s a full ecosystem topic because if you have many accelerators, many investment funds dedicating to this, well, probably you also have the companies which go together. And if we are missing various links in the chain in Europe, that probably you don’t have the companies. So probably that’s what you aim to solve now with your venture. But how do you see this dichotomy between old school, Europe and North America? Or maybe Asia?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Yeah, no, you’re right. Certainly, you know, we can say that Europe is leading despite all the money injected. I mean, there’s one thing we can dispute and I’m going to answer your question, but there’s one thing we can dispute is the find that there’s a lot of public funding injected into water. And obviously one area which is very close to my heart is European funding. And you have a lot of money injected into new ideas, projects, and tech. I think the difference is between Europe and the U S and I will go back to Asia between between Europe and the us is the money injected. When a startup in Europe is looking for 1 million, they are so happy. You know, when they have managed to raise that, usually between 12 and 18 months in the us, it’s a range, you know, between five, 10, 15 millions.

So what you can do, you know, obviously within the 1 million and the 5 million is completely different. So, you know, it’s same industry, although it’s not set up the same way, obviously, you know, between Europe and the us, the money injected is not the same and that’s what we are missing in Europe. And that’s why we have set up the accelerator as well. And what I keep saying to the startups I work with, whether it’s in the accelerator or with my own company is go for the big numbers straight away, because that will be one way of scaling up. If you want to be the first you need to be quick, competition is there. And it’s not just competition from Europe. It’s a global competition now, including from Asia, from Singapore, from South Korea, from China. So that’s one thing I think you’re also absolutely right in saying, you know, we are missing this ecosystem.

The finishing is that you have many organizations working in the water sector. And again, you know, they are doing a good job. The gap we want to close is making sure that we have the right people with the right mindset within one, let’s say organization. And that’s why we are trying to do. And what I mean by that is the right mindset is again, you know, looking forward, looking out of the box, being able, that’s my favorite phrase, you know, having entrepreneurs, which are able to sell fridges to Eskimos. So we need to move from a very successful water sector because it has worked. I mean, you were talking about regulation. I think Europe is very much leading, you know, in this area and for the best. So I think, you know, we can be really, Oh, we can come back. You need to be a leader in the water sector because we have everything to succeed. We have the money, we have the public fund. I mean, private money, public funding, the startups, we have big companies, we are a big market, but I think what is missing now is the willingness to go to the next step.

Antoine Walter:

There’s something it’s just a weird idea, which is regularly popping up in my mind. You know, we are a tech driven sector, meaning that one major source of innovation usually is someone doing some very, very, very advanced research, nice research in university in high schools, sometimes in companies and coming with that incredible technology. And then you’re looking to a market, what could be a potential application of that crazy technology. And sometimes I’m wondering if the other way round would be possible. You know, some kind of startup studios, you are out there in the market, you, you find problems. You have no clue how to solve them, but you just say, Hey, here, there’s a problem. If there’s a problem there’s value to bring, please someone find a solution, but the market would be there and we would be looking for the solution. So we would be leveraging the technical know-how of that industry while just leapfrogging this market elements, because we would start with the market. Do you think that’s utopic and impossible or could that be another way to look at it?

Gaetane Suzenet:

No, you’re absolutely right. And I think that’s a brilliant idea, especially in Europe, because we always start, you know, with research and we don’t look at what the market needs. And that’s why for instance, as the European Water Tech accelerator, I can tell you that from next month, we’re going to start also having half an hour conversations with market players, understanding what they need, because I know, you know, since the beginning of our conversation, I’ve been blaming the market, but at the same time, the market is sort of flooded with solutions. If I take an example, leakage detection, I mean, we looked at this area as an accelerator and we could not see the difference between one take and the other take, but one company wants startup has been very clever because they took it from the PropTech. So they’ve been looking at, you know, the, the working with property managers, you know, the PropTech area rather than the water tech area.

So they looked at what the market needed and they packaged it in a way that it responded to this need. And as a result of that, they managed to raise funds and their positioning is very clear. So it’s no longer on leakage rate reduction. It’s very much, you know, managing water in buildings if, if I make it short. So you’re absolutely right. And that’s one issue also within the accelerator that we’re looking at, we’re looking at what the market needs, what are the niche markets as well? Getting back to the issue, which is, you know, of interest to me is finance, you know, would FinTech, for instance, you know, be applicable to the water industry. That’s one thing we are looking at at the moment, you know, within the accelerator. So we don’t want to look at what the water sector knows already. You know, we’re not arrogant enough, although I’m French, we’re not arrogant enough to say, you know, Oh, we’re going to teach you how to do it.

What we want to do is to prepare the startups, whether they are early stage, I mean, spinoff early stage, or let’s say, you know, not, not yet late stage, but in the middle to be ready to speak to the market, to be able to attract investment. And at same time, we want to open up opportunities for the market to say, precisely what you’re saying. You know, there’s probably something that we don’t know yet, but we would like to know, and that we help us in meeting our challenges as well.

Antoine Walter:

About this leakage topic, because it reminds me of, you know, of this very old marketing analogy saying that you, you’re not selling a drill, you’re selling a hole in the wall and you could be going even further and say, you’re not selling the hole in the wall. You’re selling them the nice painting. That’s no hanging in your, in your living room. So you have to have the end goal in mind. So jobs to be done. You, you touched it with a FinTech. And actually that was something which I found interesting as part of your call for entries is that you aim at various fields inside the water industry, but you also mentioned they might be good ideas that are outside in another sector. And that could be translated into the water industry. And the usual suspect here is generally energy because everybody keeps saying that the energy market is somehow the water market of the future. That if you look what energy is doing now, you know what water is going to do in five years? How do you balance innovation that will come from within the sector and innovation that would come from outside?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Well, you were asking me, you know, about the future. I think, you know, it’s a bet. I like risks. I’ve always taken a risk in my professional life. I like to think out of the box and obviously, you know, what you do usually reflects what you are. So I think it’s a balance between responding to what the market would want, but I mean, if you talk about digital water. You know, if we had had this conversation 10 or 15 years ago, I’m not sure that, you know, all this discussion about digital water and applications of digital water would have been, you know, at the core of our conversation. So it’s the same, you know, for the upcoming sessions, I would say an upcoming topics. I think, you know, people can be open and you need to find early adopters who will be willing to test, you know, new ideas and same time.

You’ll have to listen to what people want, but sometimes also you need to not to force them, but to say, you know, look, if we want success, sometimes we need to take risks, balanced risk, but still risk. And if we can demonstrate benefits, then I think it’s a win-win situation for the sector, for the startups and also for the investment fund. And for the energy sector, you’re right. I would have a more balanced view. I think, you know, the energy sector is obviously probably ahead of us because they were forced to do it. You know, the deregulation of the sector, you know, introduced competition, the carbon agenda, you know, pushed for obviously new ideas, new tech, new products, new services. So it has been a good driver, which is not the case in water. We’re still in the same industry, despite the fact that you’ve got innovation around all of, around the sector. And this innovation has difficulties to enter this industry. That’s for sure.

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Antoine Walter:

You mentioned that we don’t have inside the sector, a Google or an Uber or a Facebook of water, which is probably linked with what you just said about the fact that it’s a regulated sturdy sector. You, you can just flip it on its head that easy. But if you look at the news recently, the fact that EQT has sold Innovyze to Autodesk and they turned a 250 million company into a billion company, meaning that Innovyze, enters the word of the unicorns. This magical 1 billion bar is the bar for the unicorns. And it turns out to be a digital water company. Does that mean that the future has to be digital or looking at all your tracks? I mean, there are many other topics that could be addressed that might be even absolutely low-tech, but how easy is it to tease and to pitch an investor with something which is not digital nowadays, which doesn’t mention any kind of the buzz words like artificial intelligence, machine learning IOT, and which instead would come with I don’t know the best trickling filters there is. There was, and there will be

Gaetane Suzenet:

No digital water is certainly, I mean, back to what you were saying about the long time, you know, for return on investment, digital water should be seen as an opportunity because again, you know, coming back to my point about scalability, usually, you know, digital tools or digital tech are much easier to scale up. So from an investor point of view, the digital area will be attractive because of the return on investment, because they’re high margin because of the scalability, but there’s still this issue about the market and whether digital water will be taken up by the market. So you have all the green lights, if you like, you know, from the start-up point of view and what is not known yet is whether digital water will be successful. On the other side of the coin,

Antoine Walter:

It’s still a kind of chicken and egg here because it could be that this market is really highly conservative, which everybody’s saying, or it could be that we have no clue how to sell and market to that market, which means that they just keep with what they have because they don’t trust. Or we don’t bring sufficient proof of value by chip. I mean, the risk benefits, isn’t that favorable to changing something which is working for 20 years.

Gaetane Suzenet:

You’re right. But going back to our example on leakage reduction, you’ll have new take for which, you know, you don’t need to dig, you know, a big hole in the road, you know, that would say time, money or resources, but now I am the water company. And if I don’t have, you know, a specific department dedicated to do due diligences in liquid reduction, why would I decide for one tech or the other? So it’s also, let’s say the provider, and I’m not talking about the, the launch providers I’m talking about the startups, you know, the area. I know, I know most also to make sure that they’re not sending another leakage reduction technology or product, but they’re sending the best one. And back to my phrase, you know, being able to sell fridges to Eskimos. So as you say, it’s a chicken and egg, but I think everybody has to work on practices to make sure that we move forward.

So we all agree that digital water is useful and we’ve seen it with the COVID-19 situation. So I think there’s no question about this. And you can arrange, you know, hundreds of articles about this. Now it’s about the implementation. It’s about how you scale up. And actually, I wonder because I, I wrote an article for aquatic recently about this. There are not too many digital products. Now. I know it’s been very controversial when I say that, but I was deliberately provocative to see the reaction. And there is an issue about this as well, you know, coming back to my example of Likud reduction. So is it about having one or two news tuning out of the crowd if I want to be again, you know, provocative or is it, you know, the fact that there is a very big market and there is room for everyone,

Antoine Walter:

It’s kind of a good analogy from the water sector, because when you look up at the biggest companies in the water sector own maybe two or 3% of the market share, it’s a highly distributed market. So it sounds pretty logical that when new innovation comes along, I wouldn’t expect the winner takes it all. You could see that as well. You know, when the, when DVD was over and that we went to blue Ray, actually blue Ray one, but they were like 20 competing technologies and 19 worth killed and blue Ray one, but in the water sector, we don’t have a traditional like that. You could debate for hours about what is the best treatment for your water. And still there might be 17 good answers to the question. So yeah, there’s always a subjective matter in this industry, which is hard to grasp of course, but which makes it maybe different from other sectors. I know a bit better that sectors than the other. So it’s hard for me to compare, but I would guess that a, that makes it a bit special.

Gaetane Suzenet:

I think there is an issue actually, you’re bringing up a very important issue about demonstrating that the product or service works. I think one of the issues, again, you know, putting my market hat on, one of the issues has been that I think the sector has been open to try all many technologies and it hasn’t been always successful. So to be fair, I can see that they can’t always invest in something without knowing what the end result will be. So one area, which I think, you know, should be also probably taken up by public funding is de-risking innovation. Today. You can have this within European projects, for instance, you know, which can go up to TRL seven, eight, you can go to lab, you know, for instance, United utilities in the UK has a lab Anglian water has also the innovation window, but they take the risk and the money, which is missing is not so much the investment money.

That’s the money to de-risk the innovation. I think we have to learn from the past. We have to listen to what the water industry said to us, and we need to de-risk the innovation. We need to make sure that it works and not just from a tech point of view, which is the only thing that we want to do within the accelerator is also from a business model point of view. Up to very recently, it was just, you know, Oh, I have a take, you know, wonderful. It works. You know, the pilot is wonderful. I can save, you know, 20%, the facorite number, you know, 20% of the energy. That’s great. Okay. How are you going to sell your product? And that’s when usually you get the big blank. So it’s also about training. You know, researchers, not every researcher will be an entrepreneur and we’re not asking that, but if you want to be an entrepreneur and you want to set up a spinoff, you need to ask yourself all these questions.

Usually the take is very good. You know, when we do due diligences in 90% of the cases to take is very good. What is missing is the market positioning the business model and how you’re going to get to the market. And just to give you, I’m not going to name it anybody, but I, I go the examples of two startups, which came to me said, Oh, look, I have this very good take, not, can you help me get it to the market? Nope. That’s not the way it works holding. So it’s also about training and again, and you know, to be fair, it’s a new way. It’s a new culture. So you’ve got, I mean, when I started five years ago, you know, when I decided to, to go into this finance world, simply because I identified that there was a missing gap. So I said to myself, you know, let’s address it.

Nobody was talking about investment. Nobody was talking about investment in innovation. Everybody was talking about investment in infrastructure. Five years later, now we talk about investment. We talk about finance. So if you explain to people, if you train researchers who want to be spinoff, founders, or want to be entrepreneurs, then I think you can work, but we are working vertically. We’re not working horizontaly. And that’s what we want to do with the accelerator. So our core activity is very much to work with startups and make sure that they are successful. And it’s also to work on the missing gaps.

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the business models, and that gives me a wonderful opportunity to catch your brain on something, which is, I keep asking. So listeners to the podcast might have heard the question before, but I still don’t have an answer. So maybe you have it. When I was discussing with Matthew silver, from Cambrian innovation, he’s selling water as a service, which is, I’d say to our industry, still a pretty young business model. He’s not the only one, but basically it’s something which is recent. And that would in my humble understanding and opinion, open a door to a hyper growth strategies. You could decide that you raise a huge investment. You place your containers everywhere in this world, and you start then selling a service, but much faster than you would if you grew organically putting one container. And once a, that one is paid back, you put the second container. On the paper. I don’t see the pitfall. I don’t see what what’s not working. Yet, I’m probably more, most than probably again, don’t have to be too arrogant and French too. I don’t think I’m the best brain in these industries. So if I can come with such an ID, thousands of people have had that same Idea before. What is it that I’m not seeing here, which makes hypergrowth difficult in the water industry? Do you think it’s possible to achieve hypergrowth? And is it desirable?

Gaetane Suzenet:

First of all, I would like to congratulate Matthew. I think what he’s done is great. And I think we should have more of kind of examples in the water sector. Again, the difference between the us and Europe is precisely risk. So if we had this type of money in Europe, and I’m not saying about the amount of money, because we have it also in Europe, but it’s, it’s also this innovation in the business model, which is not really innovative when you think about it, but would be for the water. I think that would change considerably the way that we look at innovation as well in Europe. So I don’t think it’s crazy. I think we should do it as well. I’ve been looking at different business models. Is the traditional VC model that we all knew the right one for the water sector? That’s a question I don’t have necessarily the answer today, but I think, you know, if European startups were able to sell a service and not to take, and especially with digital water, that would change considerably the way of the success in the water sector. And I like your ambition about hyper growth, but if we had all, you know, just growth, always, I think, you know, I would be a very happy woman, you know, that’s really important. I think we have, you know, like very good startups in Europe. Now we need the ingredients and one ingredient could be what Mathew has done, for instance, definitely for making sure that, you know, they, self-finance also their own growth.

Antoine Walter:

What’s the role there of the existing layer of water companies, because in Europe we also have the biggest companies worldwide. I mean, there’s of course the two obvious, like, like SUEZ and Veolia, but if you look at the sensor market, for instance, all the big names are European be it Hach or Endress Hauser. I mean, and of course, if there’s an existing base of big players, they might be reluctant to take the risk of being disrupted. And you know I was still with Suez when when she was boards, GE water. And at the time GE water was like, you know, the, the black duck within the GE world, they were the ones making the less money. And when they got acquired by Suez, they became the rockstars of Suez because they were the ones making the most money and the biggest growth. So those giants come with their intertia. And do they influence somehow the market there in a positive or in a negative way, by the way?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Most likely, most likely on the positive side, I would say that what you hear today is that, or what I, I heard, you know, from the, especially from the water take, not necessarily from the water providers, but from the water take providers, is that they see sort of the startups as a proxy to R and D. So in other words, you know, they want to remain competitive. They need to be quick in terms of bringing, you know, new stuff from the market. And in that respect, they are looking at, you know, what the innovation landscape looks like. At same time. If we talk about SUEZ and Veolia and these big water providers, you know, not just them, but I mean, let’s say, you know, the water providers, we were talking about regulation, one issue, which I think, you know, I would say two problems or two, two challenges don’t create problems.

Challenges. One challenge is culture. You know, we were talking about these engineers, you know, having worked in the water sector for some time and let’s be realistic thinking out of the box is difficult sometimes. And, and we can understand that, you know, you don’t make a revolution, you know, within a few years. So that’s something which should not be underestimated in this whole debate, you have men and women, and that’s sometimes also something we forget. The other issue is that this companies have as clients, municipalities. And as you know, since you worked for one of them, they have to go through tenders. One of the criteria is price. So if we don’t change this, if we don’t change the fact that innovation would become a clear criteria for the standards and that innovation is seen as a driver to improve water management in municipalities. And when I say municipalities again, you know, coming back to my environment, society, and economy, then it will be very difficult for these companies to innovate and to say, we are, we are a driver. So again, you know, we need to look at every single piece of the jigsaw to make sure that everything works at same time. And that’s probably why also now they are turning to the industry and they go outside Europe for their growth.

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the men and the woman, which is also something which is, which was intriguing to me when I was reading your, your call for entries. Because when you mentioned that you’re looking at those hidden nuggets, the, these companies, which are between early stage and late stage, those ones, which have the biggest growth potential. And what you mentioned straight away is that you are also helping them to align them for an exit. Is that the only horizon as a company, or do you think it’s possible within this industry to build the next big thing?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Exit actually can have several meanings. One is the one you described that they are eaten up by a big company for the best. And I don’t have anything against this because that brings also a long, you know, the innovation in these big companies. Yeah. And as I was saying to you, these big companies see now innovate all these startups as a proxy to R&D. So I think acquisitions trends, you know, will, will continue in the water sector. And that’s fine. Exit can also mean that the investment fund, which has invested at the beginning can exit and the startup then become an SME and mid cap and a large company and you’re right. We don’t have many of these, that’s something I would like to see. And I think there are many ways of doing this. I was, I was saying, you know, that digital water, now is flooded with platforms. We could have acquisitions, we could have exits and we could have consolidation. We could have consolidation of startups. You know, it’s not just, you know, like that’s the fault of one part of the sector. I think what we want to do with the accelerator is to list, you know, the challenge is to learn from the past to learn from the present. And we’re not stupid in Europe. You know, we have very good people, very good start-ups, money, tech… So we can do it as well,

Antoine Walter:

Element of, of skillsets, but above all of mindset, I’ve alluded to a couple of times on that microphone. But when I was in engineering school, it never crossed my mind to found a company. For me. It was just obvious there there’s the, these big players one day I’m going to be working for one of these big players and that’s my career. And the next 40 years will be happy, happily doing that. And again, chicken and egg, is it because we have the big groups that we want to work in the big groups? Is it because we have, we don’t have that much of the entrepreneurship mindset, or it’s not as populated within that sector than maybe in others, but let’s say if I was to go back in time, you know, 10 years before, and given advice to myself, I would have some things to whisper to my ear and to say, Hey, keep an eye open, keep an ear open, unfortunately, time travel. Isn’t that popular yet? So I was wondering if you, maybe as a better knower of that field than I would ever be, have some, some advice that you would give to the wannabe entrepreneur in the water industry or to the people that didn’t even realize that that’s a possible track, which is a potential win-win track for the sector and for, for them, what, what would be your advice?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Well, I would have a couple, first of all, I would say, believe in yourself. I know it sounds crazy, but believe in yourself and believe in what you do and take risk. And that’s the difference between, and I’m going to answer your question, but I think that’s very important if you fail in the U S doesn’t matter, you start again, if you fail in Europe, like you said, it, I didn’t, so you talk about mindset. It’s not so much, you know, I know we, when we talk about water, we talk about, you know, solving the global challenges that’s right. But the first thing I would say, you know, like be prepared to take the risk, believe in yourself and convince people that what you’ve got and what you’ve done is the best. And I would strongly recommend, you know, to work on these three key skills we have to change our mindset as well as Europeans.

And I don’t think, you know, we should be apologizing for what we are for what we have, because no, your French and French and the “Ecole Française de l’Eau” has been a reality, and it has been exported, you know, globally. And I think we need to make sure that people have this ambition back. You know, if we talk about the water sector, unless you have a very disruptive technology or service, then I would say, you know, before digging into an idea, look at what’s around you and not just the market, but also, you know, the, the tech landscape. Does it exist? Am I changing, you know, something with the market? Be ready to buy it. Cause this uncle is sometimes missed. And if you can tick all these boxes, then you will get the finance.

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Antoine Walter:

You mentioned the finance, and that is going to be because at some point to be cautious of your time, because I could spend another hour on that topic easily. You mentioned the finance, I’d be interested to have your personal vision there on the way finance looks at you. Is it like, you’re crazy. What are you doing with that sector? There’s so much more interesting to do. I don’t know, with it, with sending rocket to Mars, why the water sector, or is it seen as impact investing or w what’s the vision of the general word of finance towards the water VC and the water investment company or accelerators?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Well, the feedback we’ve had so far is very positive. So they see us as a good news reason being that we are able to do these due diligence because we operate as an investment fund. Investors can see us, and we’re not the only one, but they can see us as bringing to them a curated deal flow. They see that also as a hope for the future, because they can see that we are great believers in what’s coming in terms of innovations and that we all addressing issues that they can’t address. You know? So all the discussion with just heart. So it’s not like a factory it’s addressing, you know, the key issues that hopefully will make the starters more investible in the future.

Antoine Walter:

Does that mean you do impact investing or you do investing

Gaetane Suzenet:

Whether it’s impact or impact investing or investing, it’s all the same even impact investment funds now are looking for return on investment.

Antoine Walter:

Okay. So there’s a, both are coming to a common end. Yeah.

Gaetane Suzenet:

Yes, yes. It’s exactly the same. It’s exactly the same. So sounds like a good news. And again, you know, making money is not a big word.

Antoine Walter:

Yeah. That’s the point where I have to stop myself because if we, if we go into that to making money is is bad. And I can spend another hour because it is a big limit you have in your brain. And I could tell you so much stories from back in my engineering school, where, you know, even if you’re going to the private sector, you’re not go, I mean, water is a common good. How can you go to the private sector? And you, you alluded a bit to it in your introduction. But as I said, I have to be careful not to spend another hour. If it’s fine with you Gaetane, I propose you to switch to the rapid fire questions.

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Rapid fire questions.

Antoine Walter:

So my first one would be what is the most exciting projects you’ve been working on and why

Gaetane Suzenet:

Probably the accelerator, but they’re all been, I have always been starting up new ventures in my life. So it’s always been exciting, but the accelerator is particularly exciting.

Antoine Walter:

Sounds like a life lesson. What’s your favorite part of your current job?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Being at the edge that I am at, and I won’t tell you how old I am. It’s probably now helping funders of startup.

Antoine Walter:

What is the trends to watch out for in the water industry? And here we have to be cautious because if you give too much of a hint, people will only apply for that in your call for entries.

Gaetane Suzenet:

I’m not going to give on purpose and try trend. I would say, you know, thinking out of the books,

Antoine Walter:

That’s a, I guess a very, very powerful advice. What is the thing you care about the most when you’re working on a new project and when is the one you care? The least

Gaetane Suzenet:

What I care the most is the impact that we make and the results that will bring. And the list is probably the time that I’m going to spend on it.

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Antoine Walter:

The usual answer I hear a lot about this least is often, you know we don’t care about how much money we spend when we are, because we have to spend, spend, spend as much as necessary to come up with the right thing. And I take the opportunity having someone working on the finance end, you know, that sounds like I’m perfect and paper, but investment people would just hate you for that. You don’t have to burn money. You have to still use it for a purpose.

Gaetane Suzenet:

I’m very cautious about this kind of statement that spending money. I think you’ll have to spend money for the right objective. So you can probably, when you talk about basic research, you know, you can spend as much money as possible because otherwise, you know, we wouldn’t be where we are now in terms of scientific and technological progress. You know, let’s be fair, but I think for the next steps and if Jacob was with us, you know, you would tell you that I’m the one doing the finance. No, I think you have to direct your finance to, to the right objective. So for me, it’s not just about spending money

Antoine Walter:

Sources to recommend, to keep up with the water in waste with the market trends.

Gaetane Suzenet:

The accelerator, of course, we have a LinkedIn, we don’t have any website because we don’t want to be spending money on website yet, but we have a LinkedIn profile, the European water tech accelerator, and we post I think good posts and we will be having spring conversations and summer conversation in the near future, as I was saying. So that’s a very good source of finding trends out of the books.

Antoine Walter:

Perfect. And the, for listening to that right now, the link to the water tech accelerator is that, of course, in the description of that episode last question, would you have someone to recommend me to have on that same macro?

Gaetane Suzenet:

Well, some somebody really different from me, but I’ve known for ages, probably my co-founder Jacob Tompkins. Okay. Very different because we disagree on many things, but that’s why we’ve been working together for the last 20 years or something. We are very complimentary. He thinks also out of the box and says what he thinks despite the fact that he’s very British and, and I think he’s very unusual also in the water sector. Perfect. Thank you.

Antoine Walter:

It it’s been a pleasure and yeah, I wish you the best of luck into your company’s the best of luck in your call for entries. And I’m really looking forward to seeing where that is heading.

Gaetane Suzenet:

Thank you all. I wish you also the best of luck, you know, for, for your podcast and for your carrier ventures as well.

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The post Is Entrepreneurship the Missing Link to Shape the Future of the Water Industry? appeared first on (don't) Waste Water.

White Stag Investing is a research platform for responsible investments, focusing on sustainability as a source of value and stability in the long-term.

This episode is part of my series on Water Finance. Check it out!

What we covered:

How Finance could unlock something in the water sector and help it to grow and get better

How the four layers of the Water Industry might be appealing to different investor profiles, in isolation or as a portfolio

Why the Water Industry shouldn’t be afraid of significant investment funds entering the water landscape

How there’s still a long way to go for the Water Sector to be valued as it should.

What an Investment Firm actually is and does

What’s the meaning of the stock market listing of Water Futures

What’s the best balance between conservatism and entrepreneurial spirit to move the water sector forward

How finance can be a catalyst for change

What attracts the about 20 Investment Funds active in Water Venture Capital, and what strategies they are using to target the most promising prospects

How investment advice is another type of engineering, especially when you’re building the right portfolio for the right investor

How to achieve product-market fit and why it requires a broader skillset than “just” top-notch engineering

Crazy-Stupid Ideas like, Could someone disrupt the water sector with a “Book My Water Treatment dot Com?”

… and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨  

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Full Transcript:

These are computer generated, so expect some typos

Antoine Walter:

So, hi Nicola, welcome to the show.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Hi, Antoine thank you for inviting me.

Antoine Walter:

Let’s start like the usual with a postcard and actually your postcard comes from a place which is close to my heart. You’re in Zurich right now. So what can you tell us crispy about Zurich?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Well, it’s close to my heart too. I’ve been here for 10 years. I mean, there’s so much things to do here. It’s a very lively and you can go to nature. You can go into the city for culture. It can go wherever. In terms of crispiness lately with the COVID, it was not best, but we had four different types of waiters, interestingly. So I guess that’s, this is as crispy as it gets now.

Antoine Walter:

Actually, I don’t want to populate the cliche that only financial and banking people are living in Zurich, but somehow,

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah, well, I mean, all finance people live in Zurich, but all in, all people in Zurich are in finance. This is kind of it’s kind of a good reality, you know?

Antoine Walter:

Sorry. I was looking at your path. Yeah. And your path, if you allow me, the, this image starts with the perfect picture, one would make from someone working in finance and then apparently something weird happened to you and you got interested in, we are topics like sustainability environment water. Can you guide us through your steps? Yeah.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Is that really weird? Yeah. I mean yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve I started my career in finance. I’ve been working 10 years in a really deep high finance doing investment analysis, risk analysis, portfolio analysis. So really getting people how to invest, you know, and after so long time in that, you know, like in my last job, I was just looking at the screen and, you know, markets servicing was going left and right. And I was like, I could not really sense what was the use of all of this, you know, like just trying to make money here and then Dan and yeah, I decided to leave my job and go on a different paths. And since then it’s been three years I’ve kind of followed passions in sustainability. So especially more in water and I’ve tried to check or see, or what can I, how can I apply my finance skills and my passion for nature together and, and try to come up with something with that, you know,

Antoine Walter:

How does that translate in this way to, what do you do today?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

So, so the way I started is like, actually I started to look at the SDGs as a roadmap, you know? And I tried to understand what is like the common denominator in all SDGs, you know, what is the

Antoine Walter:

Sustainable development goals? Sorry.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

So, yeah, that’s like the roadmap from the UN to, to see which kind of like the big development challenge the world is facing, you know, and I was trying to find like on common denominators, like how can you have as much impact to all of these challenges and where could finance be the most useful know? So where could I apply my finances skills at best? You know, and for me, you know, after looking at this, it can begin pretty clear that it would, it would be water, you know, because first for example education, I mean, that’s a great development challenge would be a great if you have more of that, but from a finance perspective, it’s not like you can just pour money in it. That’s then we can have people educated. You know, that’s a big political process, negative of process. That’s I don’t think finance can help a lot, whereas water. I felt that’s by looking at all the investment that if we can show the value that you can bring there, then it could, you could unlock something, you know, and then suddenly you have all the resources of the finance world. Couldn’t go to the water sector and somehow help it grow or get better. You know?

Antoine Walter:

So finance is a vector to a mission, somehow you Emmett the impact, but then you convince people that’s also investing in water might be something which is good, regardless of the impact it might have.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah. I mean for me, it’s really, it falls on a spectrum, you know, like in sustainable investing, we have like traditional finance on one side, and then you have philanthropy on the other side, you know? So whether you only care about money or whether you only care about impact, actually now everything is going to mixed up somewhere in between. You know, so some investors prefer to look directly once that traditional performance with some sort of impact and the other way around. So for me, I kind of see that as different tools can use and apply and see how I can now put different investors, access to teams, so go into water and then they use these resources there. So you would get some performance, financial performance, you will get some impact time zone, and somehow the resources would be redirected in the right direction.

Antoine Walter:

Really an outsider question here, what is an investment research firm?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Basically I provide Intel to investors. So let’s say you have 10 billion francs. You need a good reason to invest in something, right? So that’s kind of where I come in. I said, okay, you want to go into water sector. I’m going to provide an analysis of all the challenges or the risks or the opportunities or the trends or the factors, what you should care about, what should be careful about. And then I’m going to dive in and edge your investment and make a case, you know, why you should put your money there and not you. So yeah, it’s really providing basically research for them to justify why they would invest in that. So

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Antoine Walter:

One could have guessed that that’s going to be our deep dive today. We’re going to be focusing on this invest water. And the cool thing for me is that I can finally say that sentence, you know, that you hear in podcasts that you see in every LinkedIn post, you do, it’s just a disclaimer on the bottom. So for once I can do that, I can tell that sentence. So this is not investment advice. It’s not an offer solicitation to buy any financial services or financial instruments. And now that I’ve told that I feel okay, I have

Yeah. You know, there was kind of noise last December around water now being traded in wall street. Yeah. And you know what? The water sector is not full of finance professionals. And all of a sudden we were in the spot and thinking, Hey, what we do is now traded in the world’s biggest stock exchange. But what does that actually really mean?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Actually water is not traded per se on wall street. What is treated is his future price. So that’s the difference of a, between a spot and a future price. It’s actually like pretty much all commodities and other precious metals. It’s not like you can go to a bank and buy a 10,000 barrels of oil, you know, but you can buy, identify worry of 10,000 barrels of oil in six months or in 12 months or in 24 months. So that if you need oil for your business in this timeframe, you’re going to get it, you know, so that’s you pay the delivery in this horizon for the price of today. So it’s going to be the same for water actually. So, but instead of a, we call like a physical delivery, it’s going to be a cash delivery. So you just get the money to buy the water, understand my in the future.

Antoine Walter:

It sounds a bit like a, an insurance, definitely

Nicola Lei Ravello:

A hundred percent. I mean I couldn’t give you an example if for example, you could be let’s say you take like a microbrewery in California, right? These guys need water to craft their IPA’s, but with the droids going on, they might not be sure to get this kind of water, you know, so in the following years, so what it can do is can actually go to the exchanges and get the water delivery contract. So it actually the boat, the water today to be delivered in two years. So they actually know that they’re going to have the money to buy the water than it in two years. So it’s really like an insurance that provides business stability, you know?

Antoine Walter:

Well, that’s a positive way to look at it. I was reading an article this morning published by the university of Miami. They were arguing against considering water as a commodity, because if the prices of oil really go above the roof, then you can invest a bit more in in exploration and dig out more oil to solve that. Whereas water is a finite resource. What we could also be discussing because yeah, you could also invest in desalination and bring more water inside the cycle. But if you look at it with a positive eye, it gives insurance and safety on the long run. If you look at it with a negative eye, it might be a door open to speculation, or really from an outsider perspective, what I’m saying might be making zero sense. So please correct me. Okay.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah. I mean, it’s not I think it’s it’s definitely a justified fear, you know, because I mean, that’s what we’ve been seeing into food commodities know like soybeans, so coffees, that’s attractive speculators and a price, which just go up and down up, and then it just completely changes livelihoods in the countries producing it, you know? So I think it’s a valid concern. I mean, I kind of looked at into this water futures and the way they kind of structured it, it’s going to be the the average price of different sources of water, you know, and this somehow makes it a bit more robust. And also that’s water is also the price of water is usually regulated. So it’s not like you can, there’s going to be some economic flaws and economic ceiling, you know? So I think, and this can provide some boundaries on this, on these two will actually avoid the worst part of speculation.

Antoine Walter:

Actually, you mentioned that the price of water is regulated. I read your various publications on the matter, just to be clear, you are investing in the sector, not in water rates,

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Plus my executive in, but yeah.

Antoine Walter:

And it’s the goal of the secretary regulation of the prices. You mentioned it as something which might be frightening investors because there’s no big profit to make in a regulated industry. But on the other end, you also mentioned that that brings this stability. It’s always going to be resilient. Is that the first reason to invest in the, in the sector?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I mean, it totally depends on what kind of investor you are, you know, issue looking at just making a lot of money in a very little time, then you’re probably not, should not go there, you know, but issue a pension fund that needs to invest the savings into retirement, or you’re pretty much a one in a million person. Then it makes sense to go into a market when investments where the fluctuation of the prices. But, you know, because that’s provides stability to investments, you know, and a lot of insurance and pension funds actually need that because they do some, what do we call it? An asset liability management. So they forecast in the next 50 years, how much money they need to pay to everyone. And the most stability, the less volatility you have in those income streams, the more security you have to make sure that you begged those guys, you know, so that’s quite attractive for big investors.

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Antoine Walter:

I like the way that you picture the water sector with this fully yours, I’m going to paraphrase you. So stop me if you want to do it better. But the bedrock is really the utility. There’s the industry, the it, and the healthcare here we are talking of the utility level. Yeah. So what you’re saying is that this is ideal. If you’re a conservative investor for structured reasons, does that mean that the optimal investment is a mix of all of those or is it really different kind of investors profiles or

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I think it really depends. I mean, it really depends kind of investor. You are, you know, people think it usually just banks or just pension funds, they just wind up at investor rates more. Usually it’s more like an ecosystem. You know, you have an investor they’re interesting laundry, long-term money investors that wants cash flow. Now, the way I kind of see it, what’s making it really interesting for me is that as you correctly say, the water sector is defined in the cross is for I would say financial sectors. So, and just chill, providing the hardware, it providing the software utilities, providing the servicing of the system and the healthcare providing the treatment. And it just makes it really interesting from a financial perspective, because all these businesses, there are different businesses, you know, they drive on different economic currents that you drive on different economic needs. So their cashflow and their revenues and their profitability is going to be somewhat different from a portfolio financial portfolio perspective. This is interesting because suddenly you tap in for different type of businesses with their own income streams, you know, and then you can create somehow a financial portfolio that is robust because if some, for example, one, an economic storm is everyone wants. Then at least you have the three others that are still standing. So it was less money

Antoine Walter:

Again with this mixed, a mixed way to look at things positive. It means that when you see a news, which says that 2.2 billion people will be facing water scarcity, what you see is also that business is, is here to stay because we need water for those people.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yes. I mean I mean, at the end of the day, it is a tragedy, you know, because you’re going to have a lot of people that are going to be facing poverty, you know, but at the same time you need a solution, right? And you need to try to frame that in a positive way to try to gathering momentum in this solution, you know, to make something happen. So, and I think that’s the power of finance, you know, because as soon as people start seeing value into something stuff happen and things change,

Antoine Walter:

That’s also draws on the difference between prices and value. If you talk to people in the street and you ask them, what’s the price of water, they’re going to tell you, it’s too expensive. We shouldn’t pay for it. I come on a water is, is nature. Why’d you have to pay for nature. And on the other end, there is no life without water. So the value goes through the roof,

Nicola Lei Ravello:

You know, it’s I mean, I think we could spend an entire day talking about this. It’s such a, it’s almost a, she’s a philosophical question. You know, they’re being finger would say about this is one problem. I think we’re seeing in the water sector that that’s something I read though, but the water valuation, you know, it needs to be low enough to make sure everyone can access it. And it stays at human rights, but it needs to be high enough to make sure we don’t it, you know, we make sure we, we make as many drop counts. So that creates some, a big, big economic conundrum. You know, at the end of the week thing, I think we were going to face an economic reality. That’s water is going to be a challenge, you know, and you need to find solutions to keep the social and spiritual value of water, but you need also to make sure that it goes where it’s needed. So I think it’s a nice challenge.

Antoine Walter:

So that’s the bedrock, really the utilities here to stay and we will always need water. If we go one step up in that pyramid, we have the industry here I get as well. That’s probably, if you need water on the utility level, you need people to deliver the pieces for that water. But now the, I mean the, the pieces of pipe, the pieces of, of treatment processes and so forth and so on, but here you could see bigger growth. I mean, I had, for instance, on the same microphone, Gilad Yogev from Fluence talking about MABR and MABR is a process which was not existing 10 years ago, nowadays it’s booming. So if you’re an industrial investing in a MABR worldwide, you’re gonna experience growth. But on the other end, that process is replacing another process. So that’s all the process. Your financial risk is much higher because you can get disrupted

Nicola Lei Ravello:

A hundred percent. I mean I think that’s the reality of any market or any business, you know, and that’s how I think, you know, innovation is driven across any industry. If you’re water, water investors in, you wanna try to stay invested in the, the top performing industrials, then you need to stay active. You know, it’s not like you can just buy this company. And in going to the beach for 20 years, you somehow need to make sure that those companies are still good business. They’re still performing well. They’re still delivering the client what the client needs. So you need to do some sort of follow up because I mean, if you invest in a company and in five years, there’s changed direction and change board direction, then it’s not the same company anymore. You know,

Antoine Walter:

When you say investing in the company, do you mean how can I kind of figure that? Is it really, you love that company and you invest in that company or is it really part of a portfolio? And you’re investing all of those

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Again, it really depends. What kind of investor your like, man, if you’re a retail investor, like it could be that you just love this company. You invest in it. If you’re a more institutional investors you want to, if it take the example of the institutionals again, you know, so those are pension funds. They need to make sure they have a stable stream of income coming for the next hundred years because they need to pay the retirement of everyone. For example, they need to make sure that in 50 years they have at least 20 years of stable income. So suddenly this becomes a problem for now, you know, and my whole is that mint water companies. I think they’re going to be the, the company is dealing with all the problems of climate change. They’re going to need to adapt the system. The infrastructure make the revamp, the system coming with new innovation when your gross potential, that’s a whole ecosystem dynamic. And I’m talking about the big picture together, you know, and just somehow make it some assets for society, you know, because the water sector, the water industry is going to be the guys that’s gonna fix that. So I think that’s precious. And the way the industry is structured makes it’s actually a long perfect long term investment. If you’re catching my my drift, you mentioned

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Antoine Walter:

The industry is structured, actually. That was something that surprised me in what you put together is that you see this fragmentation of the market as an asset. And it’s that if there is an industry which is fragmented, our water industry, surely is that industry, is that the typical example? I mean, the world leader Veolia has 3% market share. And the thing there, the second one, SUEZ has 2%. So it’s like to us, those guys are giants, but compared to the markets.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah. Dwarves. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a good thing, you know, because you have other markets where you have a, another, gotcha. You not have triggers that decide everything. I mean, that’s creates a lot of problems on its own. If I’m a finance guy, it’s means less leverage, you know, because they can do whatever they want. They’re going to get the money. Anyway. Just means all sorts of diversification. You know, I mean, if you invest across the entire water sector, this is more like 150 200 companies between wine goes bust. Then it’s not the end of the world. You know, if you have three companies and if one goes, but that’s a big problem. So yeah. See that does it differently as as a resilience for the industry. It’s

Antoine Walter:

Interesting way to look at it. It makes sense. You mentioned also the need for innovation. And I would expect from a fragmented market to be very innovative because competition should be kind of really, really strong. And so pushing the market forward,

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I would expect that too!

Antoine Walter:

If I believe my, my personal experience and actually all the people that were at that same microphone share to that comment. At some point in the interview, we are really working in a conservative industry. How can you have this dichotomy between competition that should be pushing us to do better? And on the other end, we really stay with what we know for 20 years, 30 years.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

That’s an excellent question. You know my guess is that as I wrote my article today, that I mean water is is basically a basic need service, you know? So it’s not like it can be very experimental with your innovation. So I think for right reasons, you’re going to have processes that make sure that quite in is unsure and safety is I’m sure that whatever the cost is, at least in my from what I’ve seen from a finance perspective, I don’t know what’s your which you more engineering beyond that. And the other aspect I’ve seen talking with other water investors, it’s actually the same problem with, I think other utilities and actually with pension funds in and the investment world is that utilities and benches. They’re, Ganda governed by older generations that I’m not, I would say the more senior you are the most winning for change, you know, and this can be some sort of a barrier to more innovation. And then when, when the new generation of new young guy comes in, they want to make a change. They want to implement their own things. They want tools, and that can be a driver for innovation.

Antoine Walter:

So we are too serious as an industry to be innovative

Nicola Lei Ravello:

If you’re going to put it that way, whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know.

Antoine Walter:

No, it’s true. That’s, I mean, it is a lot of imagination to even picture a disruption of the water sector. I mean, I didn’t stumble personally upon the Uber of water treatment might come one day, but I’m not sure if it’s only a generational topic because it’s an easy explanation. I get it. And it makes absolutely sense. But sometimes I give you my example of which when I was in engineering school, I never thought of disrupting anything to me. I learned how to do it, how to do it the good way. And I was just I was taught how to apply it and it was put inside my, my mindset. You know, again, we are serious. We are, you know, being innovative and crazy. That’s the thing for people working in IT or finance probably we are dealing with nature. We have to be humble. So let’s be conservative.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I think that’s a great for those. I feel, you know, I think in Finance, probably the opposite, like we, don’t how to to be disruptive, to 3d, like a, you know, like pool, you try when you play Pool, you do a big shots in the beginning, explode everything and see what you can make out of that. You know? So you know what I mean, you asked me a good questions to email before seeing the the recent interest of big private equity players in the water industry, like Ardian or Meridiam. And I think that’s could be some sort of get that as for innovation. You know, those guys, they invest in basically the essential utilities of the world, but that’s not reasonable energy. Roads or airports. Basically any kind of service humanity. And I mean, if they see if they starts getting interested in it, that’s the minister value for them, you know? And usually when they come somewhere, they come with the money and the determinations to upgrade and change stuffs, you know? So that could be another catalyst of how things could change. And we could see some sort of improvement in the industry.

Antoine Walter:

Again, that’s a very positive way to look at it.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I try to give them a run,

Antoine Walter:

The devil’s advocate today. So there’s another way to look at those big funds coming into water, which is, you know, what water, if you don’t touch it, it’s a, Cash Cow. You just operate, what’s working, you keep it running at the bare minimum. And the day the asset is really, really in poor shape. You expect to State to take it back and to repair it. I’m not being really, really

Antoine Walter:

If you look, I mean, all these Ardian, Meridiam topics came along, them possible merger between Suez and Veolia. And that was a big fear from the employees of, of those big groups to say, Hey, if we go into finance, you know, finance the devil, probably that means that we are going to cut the costs, be less innovative and and really try to milk out the companies as much as possible.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

And I think, I mean, I’m going to be the, the Angel Advocate. I dunno. It’s yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s really been, it’s the kind of investor, you know, like my opinion on, on Ardian, for example, those guys are really long-term investors, they’re long-term infrastructure. They need their things to work in the next 50-100 years, you know, so they’re going to put a sustainability, I mean, the real concept of sustainability, like make sure that everything is rents for the long-term at the heart of their investment strategy and the innovation thing. So it’s not like they’re going to, you have, you have edge funds. That’s the only thing is they do. They come somewhere this year, a week prey, try to keep it and extract as much money. What is, what is possible? That’s my opinion. What is being done with Danone at the moment? I don’t know if you follow that story, but obviously it’s a, I mean, you think it’s obviously a concern, you know, because it’s a change in paradigm, but I think then you can, you can try to find some sort of compromise between private and public solution. You know the one hand you need the conservatism to keep people employed and keep the safety and the underhand, you need some sort of entrepreneurial spirit to make sure that you need the necessary innovation to stay on top of quality. No,

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned our gen and maybe there’s a third funds, which is in the news lately is equity. They bought [inaudible] in 2017 for $240 million, I think at the time. And they just sold it to ’em.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah. So that 1 million, yeah.

Antoine Walter:

Or years later, so you multiply it by four in four years. Sounds like, you know here we are not speaking of a good father’s investment, you know, over 20 years, but like a really interesting it’s a crazy return on investment when you think of it.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah. It’s a good I mean, you know, that’s, if you look at that from a evolution innovatives perspective, those guys saw an opportunity there. So technology with potential, they financed it, they pushed it and now it’s been adopted by a big company. So somehow the innovations was integrated. And for that, the, they basically got paid five times the money, you know? So again, that’s my kind of my perspective of how finance can be a catalyst for change. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of people making money out of it. But if on the end of the day, you get an immigrant, that water system might be a, maybe a good thing.

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Antoine Walter:

Well, that brings us into the third layer of your pyramid, because here we are into IT with Innovyze, but also probably much, other examples, then Innovyze. And what you’re describing here with EQT sounds almost like venture capital.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. It is, you know, I mean, I’ve I’ve screened a venture capitalist space in water. I mean, I’ve seen a 20 funds that they do only that they try to be really catalyst it’s. I mean, the investment strategy for ventures is totally different than for for pension funds. So if you’re a private equity, you’re looking at four 15, 20 companies, you try to map out the innovation process in a given industry, you see where the big, the big bottlenecks and you try to come up, see what kind of solutions can fix those, but the next then you make a portfolio of these 20 companies and all of them, actually, they don’t, they usually expect that one or two to, to be successful. So they’re actually going to be paid by just one, six being successful in the, all the rest. They just lose the money. So even if they make five times the money, they probably lost half of it by trying other crazy ideas that engineers were pretty happy to try to try to implement, you know?

Antoine Walter:

So at which stage do we speak of investment here? Is it I mean, venture capital could be you, you find a guy with a, with a cool idea and, and you’ve found him really at seed level

Nicola Lei Ravello:

That’s even before, you know, it that’s like pre-seed okay. So there are funds that have a corporation program, which universities, they go talking with all the young engineers, or even not, they’re not even engineers yet and try to see what kind of ideas or credit solution they have. And if they find one that is good, they’re going to give it some money to try it out.

Antoine Walter:

But I mean, that’s the model we know with famous dropouts from school, with like Mark Zuckerberg, bill Gates, but, you know, it’s, that’s, that’s that permanent question to have in which I’ve been raising many times at that microphone. Is hypergrowth something which is possible within the water industry, because for sure are software as a service companies, they are really cool things, cool companies, cool concept, really aiming it at disruptive and solving bottlenecks, like you just said, but in the end, it’s it’s still that conservative market. And yeah, I guess you know, I was playing the devil’s advocate against finance here, but I think when I’m doing that, it’s a popular opinion within the water industry. We see finance more as an enemy rather than as an Ally, which it should be I guess, and I think,

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I think that’s why I’m trying to show as well. You know, I mean, look, there’s a, there’s various reasons for people to be, not trust your phone. And so, I mean, with what happened in the last great financial crisis, I mean, I mean, so many things went wrong. I mean, we could spend two hours talking about this, you know, but at the end of the day, you know, like the economy and finance is really again, and of course, system of a different type of people and, you know, so, and all they can, they can have the usefulness into the innovation process, you know, so you can have venture capital that are just, they can either care about the technology and to be the guy that, of how to create a SWAT water, to fresh water with that energy would have kind of stuff and be the biggest guy in the room.

It can be a guy that wants to just make a lot of money so that it would be an adventure kind of archetype of people, you know, but just putting their money into that. It catalyzes an idea and make it somewhat a reality, you know, and that’s probably why it’s dynamism economic dynamics into the system that’s creates growth and innovation on the other end of the spectrum, you’re gonna have institutional investors, which have treated us to invest and they want stability and that they’re gonna make pools of money by investing into the big big water companies at the very top level, like the industry of the utilities. And this is going to be a big part of their financing as well.

Antoine Walter:

How can I envision your role? I mean, you are similar people doing the same, same thing that you do. Is it like being an intermediate between the, those people with with the technology and the people with the money or the people with the ideas and the people with the markets or what, what’s your mission?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah, I mean that’s a good question. At the end of the day, you can see me as an engineer as well, you know, an investment engineer or like an economic engineer. So there’s a plan comes ventures that has been, I don’t know, investing in in food and now he wants to do in water in wants to invest at the very beginning of their innovation process or the value chain. So you see those seeds and I would help him like, okay, what’s what are the key solutions, which I think could be the game changers in all the, the bottlenecks of the industry. And then I would help him to create a portfolio of this. And then this could be, you could be successful financing one and maybe losing 10. So that’s, I’m helping him designing this portfolio construction. That’s when I can amend for them. When I’m an engineer, it could be a pension funds then wants to invest 5%, which still represent billions on choosing the best water funds or the best water stuffs to making sure that the allocation of different companies is as stable as possible. You know, so that’s kind of where I come in. The reasons

Antoine Walter:

I’m asking is that you, you mentioned this engineering aspect and if the water industry, wherever you are aiming at it’s engineers, I mean, sales guys are engineers, marketing guys are engineers. And that has lots of pros, I guess, because it means at many stages of the pyramid, we have people understanding the matter of water, but it also comes with the cons. You see a marketing campaigns build around nice features like my pumping capabilities when probably you shall tell a story instead. And I guess I’ll give you another personal example here. I remember one of the first project I was working on, we lost it. So we, it was tender phase, everything. We lost it. And it was discussing with with another engineer, which was working on the project and the guy was sincerely asking me, you know, how could we lose? We had the best process. So the best wins, the best shall always win. And actually, no the markets decided to go somewhere else. And if you don’t understand the market, then your chances to reach product market fit, to use the big names that doesn’t exist. And I would see that as something coming in the way of potential water startups, because they might have awesome technology.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Nobody wants it to then, yeah, I think that’s the, the classical you can have a perfect solution, but if you have not any problems to use it, then it’s pretty useless, you know? And it’s interesting, you mentioning that because I, I read an article recently that exactly everyone in the water industry is pretty much engineers and that’s kind of restrain the cap, the cognitive diversity of how people think, you know, like we’re having this probations and then we’d have a totally different way of seeing things, you know, and I believe to our interaction, we can somehow come in the middle of grind and trying to find something new, you know? So I’m also a big believer in that kind of thing to group different kind of people together and see what they can come up with together.

Antoine Walter:

I wonder if sometimes people even try to come with fully disruptive idea, let’s take a very stupid analogy, like stupid already. Sorry for that. Yeah. Autos everywhere. So it’s pretty fragmented market. And then you have a booking who comes and says, Hey, I do a platform. You no longer have to book a room because you do everything through my platform. They take big chunk of the market. I mean, that story is before COVID, but let’s say, and I’m wondering why nobody, for instance ever tried in the water industry to say, Hey, it’s highly fragmented. You could be doing everything. What if you didn’t care at all? And you come to a book, my water treatment.com and I take them this big chunk. I mean, it’s a stupid example, but just to say, sometimes we’re a bit doomed to come with with faster horses instead of coming with a car.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I mean to be honest, I’m not as specialized in water treatment yet as you are. So my first opinion on this, I think there’s more regulations and barriers in the water industry than there is in the Hotel industry. So that’s also some innovation.

Antoine Walter:

You mentioned regulation. It’s interesting one, you see regulation as an opportunity for instance said the U S regulating the PFAS is an opportunity. Whereas again, from my negative point of view, regulation is something would really comes in the way of liberal investment. And it sounds like, you know, two opposites

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah, I mean, you know, again, it’s you don’t have to fight every risk. You have an opportunity on the other side. So as we discussed before that, I mean, the regulation on the price of water can be bad for speculators because they’re not making enough money. It’s actually a good thing for institution investors that want stability in their performance. You know, here on PFAS, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of industrials because suddenly they have to take care, take care of their water treatment, you know, but for the people that designed the membrane that’s going to do that, that’s going to be, that’s a good news. You know? So again, if you keep a, an ecosystem market ecosystem perspective, always things are changing and moving, and then you have new players coming and trying to basically they make their own business model or their own gross innovation and that kind of things. So, yeah, I mean, that’s getting on my point, like if a business or company lose somewhere, then you have a new company that is disrupting those things and winning somewhere else. You know? So now I’m going to change the site and I’m happy to turn the table.

Antoine Walter:

That’s there’s a steady potential and booming potential water is a topic which is here to stay there’s water scarcity, lots of wastewater. I mean, four fifth of the waste water today is not treated. So there’s something to do here. We see that big funds come in, make crazy return on investments because there is also that new IT scene. And I had the other mentally exited rater on, on that microphone. We were discussing of startups and bringing them to, to the next step. And they have a churn rate, which is below 10%. So really it’s not investing in, in 20 companies to have one that succeeds in 19 that die out. It turns out that in the water sector, you can invest in 20 companies and have 18 that go to the next level, maybe not to become booking or Uber or Facebook, but still, which are profitable, which, which reach profitability. So why don’t all investors turn to the water sector and bomb it with money because that’s the best investment there was that we’ll be in.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I think they just don’t know about it yet. I mean, that’s kind of why I’m starting my business. You know, I want it to show that there’s so much things to be done here, and there’s so much finance can do, and there’s so much opportunities. So basically my job is trying to show that, you know, and by writing this article, by coming to you and talking about this, but try to see things in the new light and a new perspective, then I’ve tried to share that with all the investors in somehow things can move forward, you know, and somehow the resources of the finance can come to, to the water industry on a hold. I don’t know what I would say that you just have to take into account that global equity markets are just going up all the time now. I mean, the thing is just crazy.

It just, just one big spec. So if you’re a short-term investor, it’s a heaven for you now, so you don’t really need a reason to go anywhere else. Then it comes up a lot of different topics in the economy, but central banking, liquidity, and everything that is happening to support the economy at the moment. So, and that’s also one of my points that, I mean, this kind of short-term market momentum we are seeing at the moment. I don’t think that’s going to last forever, you know, because it’s such, it’s so based on price inflation on evaluation, I think a bit less on on the profitability of the underlying investment. But my point is that if you go into the water industry with all this potential, then this, some studies potential can become an insurance and a guarantee of something that is away from the markets. You know, and that’s interesting for investors because if you just hooked on the markets, then you can, if it falls, you’re gonna fall with it. But if you, somewhere else, if 30% of your portfolio is in water companies, then in the market goes down and obviously the water industry is going to, if everything, then what the industry is going to think as well. I think, you know, in some way it’s a bit differentiated. So that’s kinda the approach I try to come through.

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Antoine Walter:

Well, I think a good example of that is what happened with COVID. I’m pretty sure that the water industry was at least stable over the time. It didn’t disappear. I mean, people’s drinking water is still flushing the toilet.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

So yeah, I mean in terms of protection, UTeach is can their price it in, I mean, we’re quite robust, you’re quite residential. You know, they’ve been dropped as much as the as as other investments or that’s, this is some sort of protection for investors on the industrial side. I sorted some contractor delays with, I mean, they all put so much on industrials. They can revise their forward guidance. You know, how what’s been happened in the induced sales book for next year. But so far I think it’s things like getting momentum again.

Antoine Walter:

So short term investors don’t yet need water because they have all the playgrounds. How would you define the long-term? What is longterm? And in terms of finance, is it two years? Is it 20 years, a century?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

That’s a good question. You know, and like for me, long-term is really 20 years in plus fire. You can even say fabric then, you know, but again, using the analogy of institutional investors or insurance, you know, those guys, they base their all on their investment strategy on the next hundred years. You know, I don’t know about all of them. Some have, may have a different, different time horizon, but again, you feel benched on and you need to, to pay the retirement money. If someone in 50 years, they didn’t need to make sure that you’re going to have this money, you know? And so then it just has become supporting for today. So you need to make the right decision today. That’s what I would qualify as a, as a long-term investor.

Antoine Walter:

So it’s still not investment advice, but one thing that people underlook when they look at what the sector as financial investors, what is the thing that they don’t catch

Nicola Lei Ravello:

For me, Amanda, I think for me, the most exciting thing is a natural based solution. You know how like you can use the ball of nature to finish an aspect. I, so for example, last year that the central Arkansas has utility. It should have green bond and use the proceeds to buy the surrounding forest around this utilities, you know, so that was preserved and the natural filtration process, the flutter and protect its water, if I’m here, one development, you know? So I think that’s makes a lot of business sense, a strategic sense, you know, and that’s pretty cheap and less costly because you don’t have to create another infrastructure to clean the water because you just saved the nature. So I think everything in the direction like wetlands, or like spawn cities, that’s just really exciting

Antoine Walter:

On cities. It’s a pity that you use that keyword now because when I work, yeah, that’s a note to myself when they have to schedule that one hour about sponsor cities.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I think it’s, it’s pretty exciting topic.

Antoine Walter:

What’s the perception of your peers. I mean, now people are coming from, from the financial world when you come and you say, Hey, have a look here. It’s interesting for green reason for, for meaningful reason, probably, but also for financial reasons, are you seen as an outsider or is it really something which is also moving in that field?

Nicola Lei Ravello:

It’s a very interesting question. People would see more and more seriously. Like I got some friends or other people there, pure finance guidance and stuff, listening a lot, you know, so they definitely seem to interest in the value in that

Antoine Walter:

I was discussing preparing for, I hope a future interview with Jeremy Thomas of a, if it is into this hi Jeremy. And if you want to have a look at what what his publishing, he has a hashtag on LinkedIn, which has let’s talk water

Nicola Lei Ravello:

He’s French, right?

Antoine Walter:

He’s partly French. Okay. When we were discussing that he was waiting for startup accelerators, venture capitalists enter the, the water topic in Europe. It was seeing that in the U S and he was expecting it to come in Europe. And finally it turns out that that starts to bubble out. So finally his prediction is becoming true. So a startup studio, X generators are created in Europe. So usually we have the tarts compared to the us, but there’s also something interesting, which you, you you, you quote it as well, which is that the water sector comes usually some years after the energy sector. Like, if you want to see a future, we have a look at the energy sector and we see what’s coming to the water sector. Do I understand it right here? So if I, if I’m looking at the energy sector in the U S I see the longterm future of the water sector in Europe,

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I didn’t really frame it like this, but it’s yeah, I would say so. I mean you know, it’s the same idea that, you know, we had, we had so much discussion around climate change and and air carbon emissions rising temperatures of the, of the mental problems go much deeper than just energy, but what kind of energy you’re using and air, or, or heat pollution, if you want to say. And I think water and biodiversity in the oceans are the next in line, you know, because I think that the big governmental problems can come past all of this, you know, that’s the whole, whole human I’ve integrated the nature and society, you know, and yeah, I think people started with energy. And for me, it makes it sort of assume that water is the next, you know, because it just, just the next thing

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Antoine Walter:

And how much has this, let’s call it futurology important for what you do. If you, you see the future, you know how to invest.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I really see that as economic currency, you know, like where things are moving forward, I cannot see the future. I’m not I’m psychic, you know, come on. But I know, but if so, you know, but I see things are going in a certain direction. So you try to catch those currents and see where it goes. And I think that’s, that’s kind of what, how I see finance, you know, like, I mean, a lot of people are investing and this is a bit of an old mentality. Like you invest stretcher protects your money. So you’re going to try to, it’s like putting your money under your bed, you know, but if something by that, but to your bed, then you lose your money. You know, it’s not like money’s safe somewhere. And that’s the big problem we’re seeing in finance at the moment.

My approach to it is like, if you see a cut on your economy or these trends as economic currents, then you can design your investment portfolio in a different way, such like a ship, you know, that’s can flow on these different currents. So you may not know where it goes, but at least you still have a water. You know? So for me, it’s a different way of investing by trying to stay, to stay on the dock and not trying to hide in, in gold or in Bitcoins or that kind of stuff. And it’s an identity because a lot of veterans now are seeing a lot of issues because I mean, I don’t want to spend another hour talking about markets if we have something else to do. But I think that’s one of the main issue in we’re seeing in finances. So many pensions have liability to the pension is in 50 years, they’ve been investing in in credits or bonds since they were the Dawn of time. And now those, those bonds, especially this response, the yield negative yield. So you actually pay the person to lend them money. You know, so my, my ideas, I kind of said, look, we can actually invest in what are, you know, because this is going to be a growing sector in the next century. So I’m trying to provide alternatives for these kind of investors.

Antoine Walter:

Basically you put some money within your beds or in gold or in Bitcoin or in bonds, if you don’t trust any of the means to bring you that money back with benefits. So somehow we are doing the same job here. We are trying to evangelize people that they better understand the water sector, and if they better understand it, then probably they invest in it a hundred percent. Hey, see, we brought finance and environments are green minded people together.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Yeah. And hopefully we took something good out of it. You know,

Antoine Walter:

Actually you, you mentioned Bitcoin, and again, it’s not investment advice and I don’t want to invest in Bitcoin.

Nicola Lei Ravello:

I can send you my disclaimer, if you want to read it,

Antoine Walter:

I saw from your, from your path, that’s, you, you are also working in blockchain and blockchain into

Nicola Lei Ravello:

Government, such basic registration. Yeah. So, I mean, that’s a young startup I’m supporting here in Switzerland and I think they’re doing something fantastic. So what are they doing exactly is, you know, when you have reforestation conservation or preservation efforts in nature. So that could be like a preserving and forest that can be reconstructing a forest that can be a Marine protected area that can be any side of natural park. You know, this nature, centuries or zones, they are their own carbon sequestration, both, you know, so this, these lands, these natural capitals have a capacity to absorb carbon. And if you can measure it and if you can monetize it, then you can set it to a big companies that want to offset their emissions. You know, so what I find fantastic in that is that suddenly you create a financial link between natural conservation and global markets.