Innovators from the worlds of water and technology descended upon Chelmsford last week as Essex & Suffolk Water hosted its first ever Innovation Festival.
The event, which is a sister event to Northumbrian Water’s annual Innovation Festival, saw creative minds coming together in order to solve some of the industry’s biggest problems.
Over 100 innovators put their brains together at the water company’s office at Sandon Valley House to look at topics such as reducing customer bills, making water networks smarter and using data to aid decision-making.
Teams grouped together to take part in three “sprints” – which are a workshop-style activity aimed at generating ideas in a productive way.
The sprints were:
Total Recall – developing a practical, data-driven knowledge-sharing platform that enables real-time field decision-making.
Smarter Water – looking at utilising the water network as much as possible, and making it as smart as possible.
Cutting Bills Changing Lives – exploring innovative ways to reduce water bills for customers struggling to pay, without relying on water efficiency measures and beyond existing discount criteria.
As part of the successful event, the attendees were inspired by guest speaker Olympic medallist Chris Cook and also took part in a number of family-friendly activities.
Some of the ideas generated from the festival will be taken to the Newcastle-based Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival in July in order to be further progressed.
Angela MacOscar, Head of Innovation at Essex & Suffolk Water, said: “The Innovation Festival in Essex was a huge success, and we were thrilled to see so many people coming together in order to really get into some tough challenges.
“It was great to get so many diverse points of view, and some ideas that we will continue to progress within our business to ultimately further improve our services for our customers.
“Within our business we have already seen some fantastic innovations coming out of Essex, including Mowbis and Towbis, which help to keep the water flowing for customers when there is an interruption to supply.
“I can’t wait to see how these ideas continue to develop at our main festival in July.”
To keep up-to-date with Innovation Festival news, sign up to the Innovation Connect Newsletter, here – https://www.innovationfestival.org/sign-up/
