Three Winners for announced for The Water Council’s Tech Challenge

MILWAUKEE, Jan. 26, 2022 – The Water Council is pleased to announce three winners for its fall 2021 Tech Challenge, chosen by industry leaders to help solve real challenges in the water sector.

The Water Council’s Tech Challenge connects water innovators with leading water technology companies, facilitating potential partnerships and helping new ideas and technologies gain exposure in the industry. The fall 2021 challenge sought solutions for three topics: Internet of Things (IOT)-enabled water quality sensors, microbial control technologies and innovations that reduce operating expenditures in aerobic wastewater treatment.

The challenge’s sponsors, A. O. Smith, Badger Meter, Watts Water Technologies and Xylem, selected the three winners to receive $10,000 prizes. CAVinTace (Istanbul, Turkey) was selected by Xylem as the winner of the challenge to reduce operating expenditures in aerobic wastewater treatment. CAVinTace’s solution is a novel pretreatment approach for aerobic and anaerobic digestions via micro scale hydrodynamic cavitation.

A. O. Smith, Badger Meter and Watts selected winners for the other two topic areas. Anthony Dichiara (Seattle, Washington) was selected as the winner of the Internet of Things-enabled water quality sensing topic. Dichiara is working on a cellulosic paper project, which with its bio-renewable and hygroscopic nature provides an excellent platform for building sustainable and affordable water sensors with superior performance.

Vienna Water Monitoring Solutions (Vienna, Austria) was selected as the winner of the microbial control topic for its Coliminder technology. ColiMinder is an instrument for rapid and fully automatic measurements of bacterial contamination in water, providing a result in 15 minutes, enabling continuous monitoring of microbiological water quality in water treatment and distribution.

Xylem became the newest sponsor of the Tech Challenge for the fall round. “We found great benefit in increasing our engagement with The Water Council by participating in the Tech Challenge,” said Mike Maierle, Director, Global Treatment Project Execution at Xylem. “The competition provided valuable insights and an interesting pipeline of applications.”

This round of the Tech Challenge was especially impressive for its global representation, with applications submitted from 17 countries. Almost all the solutions submitted were previously unknown to the sponsors. This was also the first time the challenge involved three topics, offering more opportunities to connect innovative solutions to companies that can use them.

About The Water Council:
The Water Council (TWC) is a global hub dedicated to solving critical water challenges by driving innovation in freshwater technology and advancing water stewardship. Built on more than a century of innovation, TWC has coalesced one of the most concentrated and mature water technology clusters in the world from its headquarters at the Global Water Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Recognizing the need for smarter and more sustainable use of water worldwide, TWC also promotes water stewardship as a natural complement to water innovation in the effort to preserve freshwater resources in the Midwest and around the world. Today, The Water Council has established itself as a global leader in the water industry and one of America’s premier economic development clusters as recognized by government agencies, Brookings and the Harvard Business School.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.