On Friday 12th November, six companies took part in a virtual heat of the Future Water innovation competition, Water Dragons. The competition was held as part of the Networks November 2021 webinar series and provided a fantastic opportunity for entrants to pitch their innovative products, services, and processes to a panel of water sector specialists.
Each company presented for eight minutes before answering questions from the judges about key characteristics and unique benefits of their networks focused innovation.
The judges were very impressed by the calibre of all the entries, and after a period of deliberation announced the overall winner as Steve Vick International Ltd with their Perpetual Pipe Pusher.
Commenting on the judge’s outcome, Alastair Moseley, Water Dragon Judge Chair & Future Water Board Member said:
“All six of the innovations presented to us today were high quality and all will have a part to play in the future transformation of the water sector. Choosing a winner was therefore extremely challenging but, in the end, it came down to the innovation that the judges felt was really breaking new ground and doing something that hasn’t been available before. Our winners, Steve Vick International Ltd, presented a technology that has the capacity to transform the rehabilitation of water and gas mains.
The judges also awarded Highly Commended to Rehau for taking leak detection within properties to a new level. Congratulations to both companies for their ingenuity and creativity.”
Commenting on their win, Iain Fisher, Technical Support Engineer at Steve Vick International commented:
“We were absolutely thrilled to win the Water Dragons Heat with our Perpetual Pipe Pusher, especially as we were up against some stiff competition. As a company we are very well known in the gas industry but we are keen to grow our presence within the water industry. Future Water and the Water Dragons competition offer the ideal platform for us to do this and showcase some of our latest innovations”
Steve Vick International Ltd and Rehau will now go through to the final of Water Dragons 2021 to be held in the early part of 2022, along with winners from our previous heats, FloNergia, Aquasensing, Proteus and SEM Energy Ltd.
About Water Dragons:
Future Water launched Water Dragons in 2008. It provides a unique opportunity for companies to pitch product, service or process innovations to a panel of senior water company executives and industry specialists, the ‘Water Dragons’. Now in its fourteenth year, Water Dragons continues to evolve. 2020 saw heats attract a wide range of entries from across the sector and the introduction of virtual heats.
The panel of judges or ‘dragons’ are different for each heat and are drawn from a variety of water companies, businesses, industry and academia. The dragons from this heat came from Anglian Water, Hydrosave, Thames Water, Bristol Water and United Utilities.
The six companies competing in the heat were:
• Evifile and NADC – NADC Hydrant App powered by Evifile
• Steve Vick International Ltd – Perpetual pipe pusher – WINNER
• Enginsoft – Real-time prediction of water leakage
• Rehau – RE.GUARD smart leakage detection – HIGHLY COMMENDED
• Smarter Technologies Group – Universal real-time water meter AMR with leak detection
• Paragon Drones – confined space detection drones