Looking back: Innovate East 2019

First thoughts

As someone with no previous experience in the water industry, who didn’t really know what ‘water risk management’ was all about, and who had only just stepped her toe into the engineering and manufacturing world a month prior to the event – I really had no idea what to expect from Innovate East.

I began my yearlong placement at Siemens as a Marketing and Business Development Intern in August, and quickly made a pact with myself to get involved in everything and anything, because 12 months goes quick and I want all the experience I can get.

So, when my manager mentioned Innovate East was taking place, and that I could attend, I knew I was going.

After signing myself up and exploring the website, I came across the Sprints, Hackathons and Daily Dashes, a range of sessions on varying topics effecting the water industry such as “How can we revolutionise leakage management using learning from other sectors and industries?” and “What's the best way to support our non-household customers to use less water and lower their water footprint?”

There were so many topics to choose from but in the end, I registered myself for the “Can digital twins help improve water quality management in distribution systems?” Sprint Sponsored by Siemens.

Arriving at the site

After a train, a tube, another tube and a final train, a night in a hotel and a taxi I didn’t think was going to show up, I made it to the Innovate East site! The site itself amazed and surprised me. I had expected a conference centre with various rooms holding the different talks and activities, however with a name like Innovate East, I should have probably expected something a bit more exciting;

The entire site consisted of inflated domes, spread out around the grounds and consisted of a wellbeing zone, innovation lab, a main dome, hack dome and lots of smaller domes for the ‘sprints’ to take place in.

But before we were sent off to explore the village of domes ourselves, we were inspired and invigorated with an adrenaline inducing performance from SLAM! and talks delivered by Tech Reporter Kate Russell and Countdown Star Carol Vorderman.

When Carol Vorderman walked onto the stage on the first day of Innovate East, I’m sure most of us down there were thinking ‘countdown!! Its Carol from countdown!!” However, over the duration of her talk, my perceptions and thoughts were completely shifted.

You see, what I didn’t know was that Carol grew up quite poor, to the point where her and all her siblings would share 1 tub of bath water a week. She spoke about this openly and set the tone of the day, making sure we all remembered how precious our current water supplies are.

As the story developed, Carol revealed how someone took a chance on her, and gave her the opportunity to go to University to get a degree in Engineering. Carol finished off her talk, reminding us all how great it was that we had the opportunity to be there, and reminding those leading the event around us, that they should take a chance on us, and see what brilliant things come out of it.

SPRINT time

Once all the introductions were complete, it was time to settle into our white domes for the day. As previously mentioned, the sprint I had booked onto was “Can digital twins help improve water quality management in distribution systems?”

When I first entered the dome, I was surprised to find circular tables with sweets, pens and paper and what felt like a very informal environment. I had expected rows of seats with a podium up front which would see a few speakers with some allocated question/discussion time. The day was quite the opposite. From the beginning we were encouraged to share with the rest of the room who we were, what we did and what we expected from the day. There were a few presentations and talks, but all led to a discussion or an activity.

Our leaders for the day, Lucy Skipper and James Worthington from Anglian Water didn’t really feel like stereotypical leaders, but more like mentors, guiders, influencers there to make sure we had a thought-provoking-idea-inspiring atmosphere.

Throughout the day we had many activities going on amongst the essential-oil de-stress mist, yoga, free brownies, disco lights and our Calma Llama (you had to be there).

We looked at the concept of digital twins, why would they be used, what they would be good for, limitations and what actually is a digital twin? (See our definition below).

One of the most personally thought-provoking parts of the day was when we began discussions on Water Quality risks and issues. I realised at that point that, as someone outside of the water industry, I don’t consider what must happen before I turn the tap on for me to have beautiful, clean, sparkly water to drink and wash myself with. I don’t think about all the risks, and the things that do and could go wrong, what needs to be prevented, treated and resolved. I, and most of society, take this all for granted. This realisation gave me a new sense of appreciation and admiration for those whose job it is to get me and millions of others our clean sparkly water.

As the discussion continues, we thought about why we have these issues, what stops us resolving/managing them and the scale and impact of issues and therefor which issues would provide the biggest value if resolved.

Although I only spent 1 day at the 3-day event of Innovate East, I still left knowing how much potential there is for the water industry to grow and embrace digitalisation. Whether it be digital twins, sensors, scanners or monitors – lots can be done.

I know that the rest of the event will have been just an inspiring as 10 of the innovative ideas created over those three days were granted funding to be developed further. Including the idea that came out of the sprint I was involved in!

Here’s to the next one…?

Highlights of the day

- Lunch on a token, event members received a token allowing them to get a free lunch from one of the many food trucks. As a northerner I naturally went for the pie option.

- Anglian Water’s pop-up shop, Anglian water had a pop-up shop showing innovative ways on how we can all use less water. They also featured some creative customer tips, water saving gadgets like shower timers and a mini Lego neighbourhood showing the importance of good water drainage in our streets. Love to see the creativity!

- Wellbeing Zone, one of the domes to be explored was the Wellbeing Zone. Here we could pick up some positive messages, make a wellbeing pledge for ourselves, get some healthy treats or sweets and relax on a beanbag. In case you are wondering, my wellbeing pledge was to start running again (didn’t happen) and I chose sweets over the healthy snacks – oops!

- Innovation Lab, the innovation lab featured some current, exciting developments in the digital world such as 3D Printing, Virtual Reality and getting an image of your face printed onto a piece of chocolate!