American Water Summit - 2018

Inspiring innovation is one of the greatest challenges that a leader faces. How do you encourage creativity while maintaining efficiency? Embrace new technology without sacrificing stability? Challenge the status quo without endangering culture and tradition?
 
The water industry is one of the cornerstones of the US economy, but it must also demonstrate leadership as America faces down the challenges posed by aging infrastructure, strained resources and a less predictable climate.
 
Innovation is inspired by obstacles and by bold leaders who would turn adversity into opportunity. Major cities and industrial users are beginning to pioneer cutting-edge technologies and collaborative business models – the opportunities lie in inspiring other stakeholders to follow suit. 
 
The 2018 American Water Summit will showcase how water industry leaders in the public and private sectors are inspiring innovation in finance, technology and governance. Join us in Philadelphia to shape the future of water.

Is the future of the North American water industry going to be based on the established relationships between customers and suppliers, or should we move to a new model of partnerships in order to thrive?

It is a crucial question for 2016. The prolonged drought in California, the outrage surrounding the Flint lead contamination, and the bitter politics of the election cycle have thrown up new challenges to add to the longer term issues of ageing infrastructure, reduced federal financial support and expectations of better environmental stewardship. The solutions are not the same ones that the engineering firms, technology suppliers, contract operators, bankers, and contractors have been selling for years. They don’t exist yet: if they did we wouldn’t still have these problems today.

We need new solutions and these are only going to come about by catalyzing collaboration. That is the theme of this year’s American Water Summit. We need to bring the public, private and industrial water sectors closer together to form new partnerships, sharing an understanding of the objectives, developing new approaches and ultimately sharing value between all partners.

Workshop: Empowering the Digital Utility

New technologies from smart meters to on-line water quality sensors have the potential to either transform the productivity of the water utility sector, or overwhelm it with terabytes of data.This half day workshop aims to ensure that the digital revolution empowers water utilities. To do this we must align the multitude of hardware, software and data management service providers currently battling across a series of niche markets into a coherent vision for the digital utility.

The water industry is struggling to achieve its objectives. In poor countries, too many people are left without access to safe drinking water and sanitation, while in rich countries, infrastructure investment is not keeping pace with asset depreciation, and the risks associated with increased water scarcity and environmental challenges are not being managed effectively.

Other utility industries – power and telecoms, for example — have been able to leverage technology, finance and regulation to meet similar challenges and become high-performance service industries. Water has lagged behind.

The Global Water Leaders Group is about bringing together water leaders from around the world to change this paradigm.