GLOBE-Net, October 21, 2014 – The second annual World Water-Tech North America Summit, the fifth event in the World Water-Tech series, gathers the key stakeholders from every part of the water value chain.  Hosted by Rethink Events and WaterTAP Ontario, the event provides a dynamic meeting place for the growing international water-tech community.

World Water-Tech North America will feature utility and industrial leaders from around the world, sharing their experiences of developing and commercializing new water technologies and the impact that these technologies have had on their business and bottom line.

Key Topics

Over two days of plenary sessions, delegates will hear from speakers on:

• Enabling change: global water and environment leaders on how they are developing regulatory frameworks to encourage and incentivize the adoption of new technologies
• Pipe dreams? Visions of a profitable, sustainable, energy neutral, successful water utility
• Conquering the water energy nexus:case studies of water projects which are energy positive and energy projects which are water positive
• Unconventional innovation for unconventional oil: moving towards zero discharge SAGD operations and developing solutions to the water challenges of fracking
• “Yes please in my back yard”:opportunities in decentralized waste treatment
• Identifying best practice for water management for mining:overcoming challenges for use, treatment, recycling and disposal of water used in mining
• Business models for success: developing and commercializing technology in municipalities
• Does smart have the answer?Partnering for success and bridging the gap between municipalities and industry
• Stories from the investment community:what makes a technology investable and experiences from recent water deals
• China Showcase:opportunities for water technology in China

Technology Showcases

Additionally, this year’s World Water-Tech North America Summit will feature two Technology Showcase sessions that are certain to catch the attention of stakeholders and potential investors alike.

The Technology Showcases will be moderated by John Neate, President of GLOBE Performance Solutions and will highlight presentations by CEOs and Presidents of several innovative technology companies who will provide brief “snapshots” of their technologies and companies to prospective investors. Presentations will be followed by interviews about the growth strategy and business plan for each company. Sessions will be held on both Day 1 and Day 2 of the Summit and additional details may be found in the official online agenda.

Key Speakers

Companies and CEOs/Presidents to be profiled during the Technology Showcase include:

Bundeep Singh Rangar, Chairman & CEO NANOSTRUCK, Canada – NanoStruck Technologies Inc. is a Canadian Company with a suite of technologies that remove molecular sized particles using patented absorptive organic polymers. These versatile biomaterials are derived from crustacean shells or plant fibers, depending on requirements of their usage. Acting as molecular sponges, the nanometer-sized polymers are custom programmed to absorb specific particles for remediation or retrieval purposes. These could be to clean out unwanted materials like acids, hydrocarbons, pathogens, oils and toxins in water via its NanoPure solutions. Or conversely, to recover wanted and precious metal particles in mine tailings, such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium using the Company’s NanoMet solutions.

Andressa Lacerda, Chief Operational Officer, NOBLE PURIFICATION, Canada – Noble Purication’s Euglena BioFiltration System™ is a simple and powerful concept inspired by nature. The idea derives from algae blooms and their ability to extract nearly all nutrients from their surroundings. Taking this one step further, a unique alga (Euglena gracillis) is employed that can be tricked into absorbing minerals, heavy metals and other pollutants from the environment. Though algae blooms wreak havoc on our ecosystems, the same philosophy has been applied to achieve beneficial results. The company’s Euglena BioFiltration System™ recreates an algae bloom and harnesses its physiological capabilities. In this way, Euglena BioFiltration™ creates a cleaner, more controlled way of removing excess nutrients and contaminates while preventing their release into the environment. Furthermore, due to the special characteristics of Euglena gracillis, the algae by-products of the system may be translated into alternate sources of revenue for clients.

Angella A. Hughes, President & CEO, XOGEN, Canada – With a vast  scientific, technical and business experience represented within its technical and business team, Xogen is able to provide services to its customers for the treatment of wastewater from a wide range of  industrial and commercial sources. Xogen offers the following services for your wastewater treatment needs.

• Treatability tests-assessing whether your wastewater can be treated with our electrochemical treatment approach
• Preliminary & detailed design of the electrochemical treatment train
• Pilot scale testing
• Budgetary estimates
• Supervision of installation
• System start-up & operator training
• Cost benefit analysis
• Equipment manufacturing, installation, repair & maintenance

Kok Eng Liaw, Chief Executive Officer, ZWEEC, Singapore – ZWEEC Analytics provides systems and technology solutions for Water Security, Sports Safety and Intelligent Surveillance. The company’s core product line is tied to three key technology applications:

• 3VO – Fish Activity Monitoring System
• DEWS (Distress Early Warning System)
• Intelligent Surveillance

The 3VO technology, ZWEEC’s intelligent bio-monitoring system is a smart early warning solution for detecting contaminants in water through observing fish group behaviours. Fish are automatically detected and tracked.  Their activities and group swimming patterns are seamlessly analyzed.  When the number of dead fish reaches a preset threshold, alerts will be sent to the central control where operators are notified for their actions.

DEWS is an automated video-based system that helps lifesavers with constant pool surveillance and intelligent drowning detection.   Using overhead and underwater cameras, DEWS is able to track swimmers individually and uses intelligent technologies for faster means of water crisis detection to improve water safety. The Intelligent Surveillance system incorporates on-site cameras, video management and user terminals to provide a comprehensive surveillance system with intelligence to detect and measure public space activities, including people counting and abandoned object detection. 

Eytan Levy, Co-founder and CEO, EMEFCY – Emefcy was founded in 2008 with a vision of fundamentally changing the energy economics of wastewater treatment. Emefcy’s highly skilled multidiscipline team offers advanced energy efficient wastewater treatment technologies for municipal and industrial plants.

Emefcy develops advanced energy efficient wastewater treatment technologies for municipal and industrial plants. The company’s technology uses naturally occurring bacteria in an electrogenic bioreactor to treat wastewater. The organic material in the waste produces power and treated water, transforming wastewater treatment from an energy-intensive, cost-intensive and carbon-intensive process, into an energy-generating and carbon-reducing process. With several global innovation awards and a strong scientific background, Emefcy is leading the next generation in wastewater treatment.

Drew Evans, Vice President of Operations, REAL TECH, Canada – Founded in 2004, Real Tech’s primary goal is to improve global water quality through the development of an innovative product line of both portable and real time continuous water quality analyzers, helping clients take control and know what is in their water. Real Tech uses light for water quality analysis (spectrophotometry) in the most simple and effective manner, creating a new generation of water quality monitoring devices. This provides for the rapid and accurate detection of many common and emerging contaminants in water, such as organics and nitrates, while maintaining incredible ease of use and affordability.

Real Tech’s clients are based in almost 40 countries around the world including large and small municipal water and wastewater treatment plants, major water industry leaders, Fortune 500 companies as well as government agencies.

George Lampropoulos, President & CEO, AUG SIGNALS, Canada – Founded in 1986, AUG Signals has been dedicated to excellence in signal, image and data processing for over two decades. As a leader in its field, AUG is at the forefront of research and development in registration, detection, recognition, classification and identification, tracking, data mining techniques, intelligent systems and online distributed processing, situation assessment for decision support, and multi-sensor information fusion.

The company possesses an extensive track record of successful projects, collaborating with government, academic and industry partners. Concrete applications of AUG Signals technological innovations include the monitoring of drinking water and the environment, multi-sensor surveillance of maritime and land, natural resources mapping and applications for the military.

AUG Signals’ unique water monitoring technology features superior signal processing and multi-source data fusion techniques that are paramount in order to yield most accurate sensor information and synthesize all available data streams. Key advantages of this technology include:

• Accurate event detection, identification and contaminant concentration quantification capabilities at concentrations much lower than the maximum acceptable concentrations to allow for proactive contaminant removal and to prevent contamination situations from occurring
• Timely response in the event of a crisis
• Minimization of the scale and public health consequences of a waterborne contamination event
• Enhanced emergency planning
• Ability to fully customize – contaminants of interest vary depending on priorities, location. Commercial, off-the-shelf sensors are selected to target specific contaminants. Based on end user contaminants of interest, appropriate off-the-shelf sensors are integrated into the IDWMS sensor sites. The IDWMS then manipulates these data inputs and interprets the information. The accuracy of AUG Signals’ technology is independent of any specific contaminants.
• Situation assessment and support capacity – event/contamination libraries and response protocols facilitating water purveyors’ decision making
• Ability to trace a potential waterborne disease outbreak according to: location, extent, rate of spread and population at risk.
• Capability to automatically detect pipe leakages along the distribution system, thus enabling water and energy conservation
• Facilitation to integrate a water surveillance system into asset-intensive enterprises

Special Discount for GLOBE-Net Readers

The event takes place at MaRS Centre- Toronto, November 12-14, 2014 – Register at www.watertechtoronto.rethinkevents.com and quote GLOBE2014 to receive a 20% discount