The Water Council, with its supporting corporate sponsors A. O. Smith Corp., Badger Meter and Zurn Industries, has announced the winners for the second round of the Tech Challenge. This round focused on innovative solutions for inline sensors that detect water quality parameters and artificial intelligence for pipe networks and systems.

The Tech Challenge program augments corporate open innovation channels and identifies emerging freshwater technologies and ideas with a high potential for commercialization. Throughout the year, several topics of interest are identified by corporate sponsors, which are then posted as open Tech Challenges and promoted globally. Selected finalists have an opportunity to meet in-person with sponsors for a chance to win prize money, gain access to corporate R&D resources and potentially partner with a corporate sponsor on the development of the technology or idea.

“This round attracted 22 applications from nine countries, of which 80 percent weren’t already on the radar for our sponsor companies,” said Karen Frost, vice president of economic development at The Water Council. “That is exactly what the Tech Challenge is designed to do for our sponsors – build pipeline.”

The following innovations were chosen as Tech Challenge winners:

Verifi H2O – An innovative water-monitoring platform delivering real-time water quality surveillance systems based on proprietary, advanced material technologies that rapidly detect pathogens and other contaminants, while providing customers with reliable information to make time-sensitive decisions.

Waterhound Futures – A predictive modeling and analytics solution, which simulates water and wastewater treatment plants to provide actionable insight to operators, engineers and management.

“Badger Meter owes its success to a long history of water technology innovation,” said Dan Fellers, manager, research and development at Badger Meter. “We are confident the quality and diversity of ideas that flow from the Tech Challenge will help fuel the solutions of tomorrow.”

The Tech Challenge is designed to build additional pathways for corporate R&D teams beyond conventional channels.

“Our participation in the program widens our access to innovators who have ideas but haven’t explored marketing their solutions through traditional channels yet, so it’s been a valuable way to extend our R&D efforts for innovations that would have taken much longer to find on our own,” added Rebecca Tallon, engineering director, water treatment at A. O. Smith Corp.

In addition to augmenting R&D pathways, the Tech Challenge program also drives deal flow opportunities in targeted topics of interest.

“AI is an emerging topic, so we’re interested in innovations in that specific area as part of our connected products strategy,” said Glen Trickle, director of engineering at Zurn. “This Challenge, we were pleasantly surprised by the volume of qualified AI applications, along with other solutions that we’re continuing to explore.”

Tech Challenge applications were accepted from Sept. 6 – Nov. 3, 2019. The next round of Tech Challenge topics will be announced March 2020.