How did the Water Alliance Innovation Stimulation (WIS) award came to be?
The Water Alliance started in 2010, one of the main question was; how are we going to strengthen innovative companies on and around the water campus and establish them on an international level? We participated in international exhibitions from the get go, to strengthen our claim: ‘for innovation you need the Dutch’, we needed some practical examples to support this.
So, what was the underlying idea?
We already had a lot of innovative companies + tech. The goal was to cluster these companies and their tech on a platform, to give them a stage to tell their unique story. Water technology is a very wide ranging field from UV lights to biological removal, to showcase this broadness we decided to make an award like competition format.
When we first introduced the concept at the Aquatech Amsterdam. We noticed that at the aqua-stage, in the exhibition hall, a lot of people were stopping and the seats surrounding the stage kept filling more and more, so we knew we had a good concept. This also has to do with the fact that inventors, the ‘Willie Wortel/Gyro Gearloose’ find it difficult to tell their story in a short period of time. Our elevator pitch format compelled the innovators to explain their invention in 2 minutes, no more no less.
You have hosted many editions, who/what do you remember most?
So much to choose from. If you look at the products I usually asked myself how did they do this, so innovative. I still remember the first winner BlueLeg Monitoring, they did water analysis without even touching the water, mind-blowing. We took them all across the world, Hans Wouters really made an impression with this ‘radar gun’, everybody who got wind of it was flabbergasted. read the full interview here
