The World Water-Tech North America 2018 show in Toronto held on October 24 & 25 brought together a good cross-section of the Canadian water industry as well as numerous international participants. The broad cross-section of attendees including manufactures, entrepreneurs, municipal employees, government employees, and water consultants made for very good networking opportunities.
Accordingly, in case you were not already aware, although the role and purpose of a water consultant can vary dramatically, their primary responsibility is to help businesses to save money while at the same time conserving resources. The services provided by professional water consultants might include assessing wastewater and property drainage charges or conducting water cost reduction reports to identify where businesses can save money on their water bills.
Highlights from a GHL point of view were meetings with some startups, a group we would like to be able to do more work with. They generally need to be able to demonstrate their technology so there is a natural fit with GHL’s services. Our business is a good fit for water innovation in general; we can provide the data and verification needed to de-risk a technology at any stage of development.
A key moment was meeting the Executive Director of Current. Current is an organization that helps to connect end users with new technologies by de-risking the technology. They specialize the front-end assessment, focusing on a paper assessment and financial analysis. They do not do the actual testing, and this makes our companies complementary. GHL can pick up where Current leaves off, extending the de-risking further along the development cycle. It was a very informative and focused one-to-one meeting and a partnership opportunity for GHL.
Overall, it was a successful event. There were some glitches with the app but it allowed me to accomplish what I needed to so I would use it again next time. I found the topics to be current and relevant and the structure to be productive. My thanks to Rethink Events and WaterTAP.
Greg at a one-to-one meeting with Current
