Presenting the Urban Water Challenge Asia Track 2018 Finalists

Meet the 2018 Imagine H2O Asia Finalists at Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) — September 17–20, 2018

Fast-growing cities across Southeast Asia face an uncertain water future. By 2030, an additional 100 million people will move to low-lying urban areas across the region. While Southeast Asia’s rapid urbanization has created economic opportunity and spurred development, population growth and climate change pose new threats to urban drinking water supplies. Technology exists to build resiliency against future scarcity, yet it remains underutilized as Southeast Asia’s cities struggle to adopt water innovation. In partnership with Enterprise Singapore, Imagine H2O Asia offers a path-to-market program for emerging water technology businesses to develop and deploy their solutions in the region. By cultivating local and international startups in Singapore’s burgeoning water innovation ecosystem, Imagine H2O Asia will bridge vetted water innovation to Southeast Asia’s utilities, businesses and communities.

In 2018, Imagine H2O Asia featured as a dedicated track within the Urban Drinking Water Challenge, a global competition to identify decentralized drinking water solutions for water-scarce cities. From a global field of over 100 startups, the Evaluation Committee selected three promising startups based on commercial viability, impact and Southeast Asia market readiness. The three 2018 Imagine H2O Asia Finalists are:

● Drinkwell (Dhaka, Bangladesh) enables utilities to provide safe drinking water to underserved urban communities via turnkey Water ATM solutions that combine a patented filtration technology, IOT-enabled operations and pay-as-you-go cards.

● Watchtower Robotics(Cambridge, MA, USA) provides an untethered robotic tool for high-accuracy and early leak detection in water distribution pipes. A cloud based analytics platform informs operators of the location and size of the leak as well as the likelihood of catastrophic failure.

● THE.WAVE.TALK (Seoul, South Korea) deploys a novel laser technology to detect bacterial contamination in real-time of entire industrial water production systems. This replaces standard methods of detection which take days and rely on sampling a subset of the total water volume.

Finalists have been fast-tracked to the qualifying round of Slingshot@SWITCH, a startup competition at Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) on September 17–19. In addition to receiving a StartupSG award and competing for a grand prize of SGD 250,000, Finalists will spend a week in Singapore meeting with potential investors, customers and partners to explore deployment opportunities in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

“Singapore provides an ideal launch pad for entrepreneurs building water technology businesses,” said Geoffrey Yeo, Director, Urban Solutions, Enterprise Singapore. “We welcome the Imagine H2O Asia Finalists at SWITCH 2018 as part of our broader commitment to foster a new wave of entrepreneurs solving water challenges in Singapore and the region.”

With a bold vision for smarter water management and a longstanding track record as an early-adopter of water technology, Singapore has certainly sowed the seeds for success. A global hydrohub is at hand — equipped with the capabilities and regional connectivity to nurture breakthrough water technologies, validate market-ready solutions and link startups to neighboring markets. Imagine H2O and its global accelerator program aims to advance these efforts, starting this September in Singapore as the three Imagine H2O Asia Finalists are showcased at SWITCH 2018.

Interested in meeting the Finalists in Singapore? Or want to learn how you can partner with Imagine H2O Asia to support water entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia? Visit www.imagineh2o.org/ih2oasia or email us at singapore@imagineh2o.org.