Veolia Water Technologies by GineersNow Engineering Magazine GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 | Page 72

Imagine H2O is an international
startup accelerator, and a 501(c)
(3) non-profit organization. They
have been around since 2009,
with around 200 people in their
organization working together to
inspire and empower other water
entrepreneurs to succeed.
GineersNow
conducted
an
exclusive interview with Tom
Ferguson, the organization’s VP
of Programming.
THE COMPANY
GineersNow: Describe your
mission, vision and values.
Tom: Our vision is a global
ecosystem for water innovation
and
entrepreneurship,
and
our mission is to empower
entrepreneurs, businesses and
communities to develop and
deploy innovation to solve water
challenges. We have ten core
values, but the most important
are “focus on the innovator”,
“celebrate success” and “have
fun”.
GN: Where is this company
headed? What are your future
expansion plans? Describe briefly
your strategic goals (10 years to
20 years plan)
Tom: We’re lucky in that we have
some fantastic backers including
Wells Fargo, Suez NA, Tetra Tech
and others, which are allowing
us to build out our support not
only for entrepreneurs in business,
but entrepreneurs in policy. We
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SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies
IMAGINE H2O:
INSPIRING
PEOPLE TO
TURN WATER
CHALLENGES
INTO
OPPORTUNITIES
have plans to support the piloting
of water technology in California,
and eventually further afield, to
reduce barriers to implementation
of innovative technology which is
the single most important issue
around improving California and
America’s water infrastructure.
INTRODUCTION
GN: How does your company
define
clean
water
and
wastewater?
Tom: While there are scientific
definitions for clean water and
wastewater, water can be
viewed through different lenses.
For instance, one industry’s
wastewater can be an opportunity
for an entrepreneur to create
a
recycling
marketplace--a
venture one of the startups in
our accelerator is working on.
You can argue that wastewater
is a misnomer, and that it
should actually be called
“opportunitywater” but we doubt
that will stick. We define clean
water as just that - clean, and that
is what utilities strive every day to
deliver and they do an amazing
job at it.
GN: How do people gain access to
clean water?
Tom: It’s difficult to accept that
people don’t have access to clean
water in 2016. It is unconscionable
that we spend $750m of public
money on football stadiums when
there are 1M people in California
alone without clean running
water. The way to gain access is
for people to demand it of their
elected representatives. That’s as
true in California as it is in Sao
Paolo, Addis Ababa, and Jakarta.
GN: Do we have limited access
to clean, drinkable water? Are we
running out of it?
Tom: Considering less than 1% of
the planet’s water is available for
drinking, clean water is absolutely
a limited resource that we need to
be making smart decisions with.
It’s basically supply and demand.
Supply is increasingly limited in
many regions due to drought and
climate change, and yet demand
is growing as our population
expands. Water is going to get
scarcer and scarcer, so we have to
get better at managing it. That
includes thinking not only about
how we grow, but what we grow.
THE MACRO LEVEL OF
THE WORLD’S WATER
TECHNOLOGY
GN: Where are we today? What
is the current situation of clean
water and wastewater (locally or
globally)?
Tom: Water challenges dominate
our headlines from California to
Flint, Michigan. The good news
is that the unprecedented level
of public awareness is helping to
prioritize more resources towards
these issues. In moving forward,
the question becomes how to