HCL & UpLink Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative Challenge

About the initiative:

By the end of this decade, global freshwater demand is expected to outstrip supply by 40% due to a combination of population growth, climate change and weak water governance.

While the numbers vary by country, agriculture irrigation accounts for about 70% of global water withdrawal, industry and energy for 19%, and the remaining is for household use – having already depleted 21% of the planet’s largest 37 groundwater resources.

To drive the freshwater conservation and management agenda, leading global conglomerate, HCL has partnered with UpLink, the open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum that connects highly promising start-ups with the partners and funding they need to scale. Through a $15 million investment over five years, HCL will help accelerate the innovation agenda for water and create a first-of-its-kind innovation ecosystem for the global freshwater sector on UpLink, called the ‘Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative’.

This initiative will draw on HCL’s own regional experience of driving innovative projects in water conservation and brings global leaders and champions together, to foster multi-stakeholder collaboration. In building this ecosystem, water entrepreneurs will be able to thrive and influence freshwater ecosystems all over the world.

Tackling Water Pollution Challenge, 2024

The five-year Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative aims to find innovative solutions to conserve and restore freshwater ecosystems. This is the third of five innovation challenges, focusing on tackling water pollution and ensuring water quality.

Challenge Overview

Submit Solution

Water holds profound environmental significance, and both its availability and quality are essential to sustain human life and biodiversity. Although water is essential for a flourishing environment, it is also a significant source of pollution within it.

Industrial runoff, agricultural practices, and plastic waste are common sources of water contamination, posing serious risks to both human health and the environment. Emerging contaminants from pharmaceuticals, pesticides, nanomaterials, microplastics, and the so-called “forever chemicals”, are further intensifying these risks. Based on a World Bank report, industries discharge around 300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other wastes into water bodies every year. "Forever chemicals," also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contaminate drinking water supplies for up to 200 million Americans today.

To tackle these issues, the third Aquapreneur challenge is seeking high-potential solutions to prevent water pollution and reduce the environmental impacts of contaminated water. This initiative aligns with recent global shifts towards implementing stricter water quality regulations, exemplified by the recent UN resolution on water at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) in spring 2024, which made decisive strides towards the protection of global water resources and the improvement of hazardous chemical and chemical waste management.

Solutions could include advanced filtration, the elimination of wastewater discharges, decision support systems to provide accurate and accessible data for measuring options for both the public and industries, as well as household water testing and filtration.

The focus areas of this challenge include:

Prevent contamination at source
Drive new approaches to water management
Optimize public water and wastewater treatment
Offer water quality solutions for households

Challenge timeline

21st May 2024: Challenge launch
21st May - 31st August 2024: Open for submissions
31st August - September 2024: Review and selection process (including communication about a pitch competition)
January 2025: Announcement of the winners during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos

Zero Water Waste Challenge, 2023

This five-year Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative aims to find innovative solutions that conserve and restore freshwater ecosystems. This is the second out of five innovation challenges, focusing on freshwater usage.

Challenge Overview

This challenge calls for innovative water usage approaches to improve freshwater conservation from supply to demand, moving towards zero water waste. 10 winners will receive a total of a 1.75M CHF financial award.

In line with the Global Commission of the Economics of Water, this challenge is seizing high potential opportunities to bolster global water conservation by sourcing innovative approaches to water usage that will strengthen freshwater ecosystem resilience from supply to demand.

It is looking for existing innovations that capture alternative water resources to protect groundwater reserves and avoid unnecessary loss of water, reuse water before discharging it back into the water cycle — ideally, recycling materials we gain from wastewater as an alternative energy resource and avoiding any type of water pollution — as well as smart irrigation solutions to benefit those who most need it. Solutions that work with big data and AI, and employ innovations in their service, pricing, partnerships, and business models are particularly encouraged to apply.

1. Capturing and protecting freshwater supply

Protecting groundwater reservoirs by capturing additional water resources. Solutions could focus on recharging groundwater, capturing storm- and rainwater or water from the atmosphere, preventing or minimizing leakages, boosting ecosystem resilience or monitoring and managing freshwater.

2. Water re-use and recycling of materials

Increase water-efficiency by reusing and recycling water resources. Solutions could include products that enable shower, washing machine and sink water to be recycled for non-potable uses, or reuse of water in industrial facilities, cleaner and greener tech to purify reused water etc. Ideally need to manage trade-offs, e.g. need to have sustainable energy support, as well as focus on water quality.

3. Saving water in agriculture

Reduce water withdrawal in agriculture through smart irrigation. Solutions could include precision irrigation, remote sensing, regenerative agricultural practices focused on water retention, and technologies such as mobile applications to optimize the amount and timing of water applied to crops.

Top 10 Aquapreneurs from FIRST CHALLENGE

Tatiana Alvasio

Kilimo

Paying farmers to save water

Kilimo is a company in Latin America using big data and machine learning to verify, improve, and offset water usage in agriculture. It provides software-as-a-service to help farmers optimize irrigation and sell water offsets to companies that want to become water neutral. Using a unique remote technological tool, Kilimo helps farmers improve their irrigation practices, validate their water savings and market these savings as water offset credits to companies with water stewardship pledges. Kilimo helps farmers across the world reduce water usage by 30%.

David Pong

Wateroam Pte Ltd

Safe drinking water in minutes

Wateroam is tackling the global challenge of contaminated drinking water, especially in rural and disaster-affected communities, with a portable filtration system that converts unsafe water into drinking water in minutes. Its technology works without electricity and can be implemented in hard-to-reach communities for as little as $2 per person per year. It operates on three continents and its products have been deployed in more than 40 countries, impacting over 200,000 people around the world.

Amrit Om Nayak

Indra Water

Decentralized treatment of wastewater using electricity for reuse

Indra water is an Indian company making water treatment systems that recycle domestic and industrial wastewater into non-potable applications. It aims to support the world’s transition to sustainable water management with products that are cheaper, more scalable and more easily deployed than traditional systems. Its solutions are able to recover 95% of wastewater and can be fully automated in order to benefit from smart monitoring and advanced analytics.

Simon Uenzi

bNovate Technologies

Improving water safety with technology

bNovate is a Swiss start-up that aims to improve water safety with technology. It is developing and commercializing simple and effective tools that analyze microbial water quality in as little as 20 minutes. The goal of bNovate is to bring water safety into the digital age with automatic and connected solutions. It makes and sells products and services targeted at industrial facilities and environments.

Aaron Tartakovsky

Epic Cleantec

Converting building wastewater into clean water, energy, and soil

Epic Cleantec is a water technology company based in the United States. It provides ready-to-go systems targeted at large building operators that convert wastewater into treated water for non-potable applications and clean energy. Its products can help reduce water demand by up to 95%, saving building owners hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on their water and sewer bills. Its goal is to shift the water industry toward a distributed, circular approach, where wastewater is converted into a renewable supply of valuable commodities.

Dragan Tutic

Oneka Technologies

Harnessing the power of waves to produce fresh water

Oneka is a Canadian company developing and commercializing autonomous desalination systems that use the power of the waves to produce fresh water. Its mission is to make the oceans the most sustainable and affordable source of drinking water, by using the movement of the sea’s waves to power a pumping, filtration and desalination system. Its desalination units can provide water for between 20 and 1500 people per day depending on consumption. Its solutions provide a source of water that requires no electricity, land-based real estate and generates no greenhouse gases.

Kevin Mercer

RainGrid Inc.

Intelligent Circular Rainfall Retention and Reuse

RainGrid is a Canadian company whose mission is to build a neural networked rain harvesting utility capacity. Its goal is to provide a circular solution to protect watersheds, improve flood and drought resilience and provide fiscal security of water infrastructure. It does so with physical and digital products that predict, capture, store and reuse rainwater on private properties. By creating a network of storage and monitoring systems, RainGrid develops an internet of things for rain collection and storage to more effectively manage water runoff in urban areas.

Olivier Gröninger, Laura-Stocco

Openversum

Providing safe water through micro franchising and engineering

Openversum is a Swiss enterprise tackling the challenge of safe and affordable drinking water by combining an innovative filtration membrane system with micro franchising. Its goal is to provide millions of people in Latin America, Asia and Africa with access to safe drinking water while creating thousands of work opportunities for local entrepreneurs. Openversum has created an affordable all-in-one drinking water filter that removes pathogens, pesticides, heavy metals and micropollutants and lowers the risks of recontamination. At the same time, it trains entrepreneurs to locally manufacture and distribute its filters, creating employment and helping those in need.

Mohammad Aatish Khan

NatureDots Private Limited

AI-powered monitoring for aquafarms

NatureDots is an Indian company enabling remote, real-time monitoring of aquafarms. Its product, AquaNurch, is an artificial intelligence application for inland freshwater fisheries that conducts data analytics and monitoring of aquatic ecosystems. By tracking both water and fish health, NatureDots aims to transform aquaculture based food chains by ensuring healthy fisheries, and in the process has created the world's biggest water data repository and observing system.

Beth Koigi

Majik Water Technologies

Renewable water source for arid regions

Majik Water is a social enterprise that specializes in air-to-water technologies in arid and semi arid regions. Initially operating in Kenya, its goal is to provide the estimated 780 million people around the world who are living without access to water with the opportunity to access clean, safe water pulled directly from the air. It uses solar thermal energy and sponge-like desiccant materials to do this in a low cost, energy efficient way. Its proof of concept can generate 10 litres of water in 24 hours.

About the initiative:

Tackling Water Pollution Challenge, 2024

Challenge Overview

The focus areas of this challenge include:

Challenge timeline

Zero Water Waste Challenge, 2023

Challenge Overview

1. Capturing and protecting freshwater supply

2. Water re-use and recycling of materials

3. Saving water in agriculture

Global Freshwater Challenge, 2022

Top 10 Aquapreneurs from FIRST CHALLENGE

Kilimo

Paying farmers to save water

Wateroam Pte Ltd

Safe drinking water in minutes

Indra Water

Decentralized treatment of wastewater using electricity for reuse

bNovate Technologies

Improving water safety with technology

Epic Cleantec

Converting building wastewater into clean water, energy, and soil

Oneka Technologies

Harnessing the power of waves to produce fresh water

RainGrid Inc.

Intelligent Circular Rainfall Retention and Reuse

Openversum

Providing safe water through micro franchising and engineering

NatureDots Private Limited

AI-powered monitoring for aquafarms

Majik Water Technologies

Renewable water source for arid regions

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