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today’s episode is sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the rising tide Mastermind is where people just like you
get together every week to help each other with issues let’s face it issues
are hard so why start from square one when somebody can tell you what they
done with a similar issue if this sounds like something that’s interesting to you
go to scaling up h2o.com Mastermind to see if the rising tide
Mastermind is right for [Music]
you welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast the podcast where we scale up on
knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems I’m Trace Blackmore and Nation
this is one of my favorite weeks because not only did we have a successful live
event here in Atlanta for the rising tide Mastermind tomorrow is the global 6K for
water May 18th is the day of course we are all going to have a great time
wherever you are around the world and to learn more about that it’s not too late
go to scaling up h2o.com 6K and you will learn everything you
need to know now one of the things that you might want to know is do I have to do this with a team of course not you
can do it by yourself but we would love for you to join our team that’s team
scaling up nation and that’s the page that you will go to if you go to scaling
up h2o.com 6K also from there you might want to
create your own team on I love recommending this to companies to do
something up and above our regular day-to-day around water to bring awareness to others about water so all
that information is going to be there as well now is the race timed people always
ask me that no the race is not timed however you can time yourself if you
wish I decide not to do that because it’s not about the time that I finish
it’s about the number of people I connect with as we are walking slash
jogging SL running whatever it is we decide to do and we try to bring awareness to everybody that we can that
wants to have a conversation now a lot of people what they will do is they will
carry a Jerry can or a five gallon can of water with them to represent what
people have to do why they’re walking 6 km because they have to go and get water
and bring it back and trust me when you’re wearing that orange shirt with a bib of a child’s picture on it and
carrying a five gallon can people are going to wonder what you’re doing and
let me tell you if you have not carried a 5 gallon can on 6 kilomet that is
something special and if you can only imagine having to do that each and every
day it brings a totally new perspective of how other people in the world have to
get their water so once again that’s scaling up h2o.com
6K that is tomorrow now if you haven’t signed up yet you’re probably not going to get a
t-shirt overnight you already know that but you can sign up you can participate
you can have fun and here’s something that I think is the most fun go ahead
and share all of your pictures of your race by using # 6K for water and #
scaling up H2O I love to see those hashtag pictures and I know the rest of
the scaling up Nation does as well I always feel like I’m part of something
huge on race day because we are the scaling up nation and I get to see so
many pictures of people in the 6K that are members of the scaling up Nation
just sharing these pictures so Nation I hope you go out and have a great time
tomorrow it’s fun for the entire family it is fun for the entire office it’s
just fun and it is a great way to bring awareness well here’s some awareness
that you might want to know about some of the things that are going on in the industrial water treatment industry the
acce 24 conference is taking place June 10th through 13th in Anaheim California
this is the place where people get together to discuss and plan for serious issues that will transform the future of
water we’ll of course have all of that information on our events page and that
of course is put on by the American Waterworks Association another conference you might
want to go to is taking place July 13th through 16th in Philadelphia p pania
that’s the 2024 Bulma International Conference and Expo Bulma is building
owners and Managers Association I had the privilege of being on our local
Bulma board here in Georgia and it was a great experience and I got to share so
much information about the Water Crisis and how we use water in all the
buildings of people that join Bulma and brought an awareness and help them keep
an awareness that everything they do with water matters and that included
water treatment that included better water treatment and I just had a great time in that capacity so I hope that’s
something that you check out it’s been very helpful for me to participate in Bulma so maybe that’s something that you
might want to join also the International Water Association is holding their world water Congress and
exhibition in Toronto Canada August 11th through 15 this conference brings
together stakeholders and key contacts within the water industry and these are
groups such as Urban water developers Services participants with industrial
agriculture Architects urban planners soil and groundwater experts
hydrogeologists social sciences and all other people bringing them together to
talk walk around water so if this is something that you want to find out more about go to our events Page by going to
scaling up h2o.com Nation you have heard our next guest on
a previous podcast it’s hard to believe that it was over two years ago that we heard from this individual here is the
interview my returning lab partner is W cury of D Sal politics well how are you
sir I’m great thank you tra for hosting me again and I I love the show so thank you well thank you for being on the show
I love all the stuff that you put out on social media you keep us on our toes to make sure we’re uh we’re putting out
equal content yeah it’s it’s can be a full-time job you know it really is you
think of okay what what do we do for real you besides all the all the content production that we do but I have to say
I’m a huge fan of yours as well uh all the interviews that you do all the
different uh papers that you put out specifically on LinkedIn I think you really help the water Community thank
you TR thank you we’re Al in the same boat and and I also appreciate all what you’re doing it’s really takes a lot of
energy and and time to spread all the info and the awareness about our
industry and how great it is to be there so thank you also for what you do every day it’s the best industry in the world
right oh definitely definitely I always keep telling this to the younger generation Wally you joined us on
episode 230 and it’s hard to believe it’s been that long ago and when I look at 230 I
think oh that was just a couple of months ago but we’re in the 300s now so I don’t know how that happened what’s
been going on with you since we last heard from you on the scaling up H2O podcast you know it’s it’s amazing I
mean time flies I think I think our interview was a little bit more than two years ago go and you see like it’s gone
already so quickly back then I was I had just started thetics and I was like in
my new entrepreneurship uh hat and uh because
I’ve been always in Fortune 500 water companies so it was completely complete shift but I think the focus was good
because it’s about Africa and uh there are a lot of uh needs in Africa on the
water side and back then I think we just had like two operations to countries
today we are in eight countries operating in eight countries we have 42 people on the ground and uh the good
news also is that almost 60% of our team are women engineer women technicians so
so we’re big on gender and this is on the deltics part and as you mentioned on
the LinkedIn and conferences so I’ve spent a lot of time networking and meeting with global organizations and
traveling all around the world and speaking in major events which gives me also so Global perspectives that I can
apply to Africa but also tell the African story to the global audience so it’s a win-win for for everyone yeah I
think you’ve been at every major Water conference that I can think of do you
seek that out or do they ask you to come speak originally I was seing it out when
I started I think back with the days when we were talking together uh I was the one pushing because back then I was
relatively known in the Middle East you know and not globally so I had more the luxury of time to be able to go and seek
this out compared to when you work in a multinational and you have lot of challenges internally on delivering uh
internal meetings and so on so so I had the luxury of going out and singing to them but now the good thing is that they
asked me again to come back and they sponsor the trips and so on and also I get new requests to to to join and and
the what I love about it is now I’m I’m sitting on the board of some of these big organizations like for example I’m
on the advisory uh board of wtech for example so so you like these are the major shows and uh it’s exciting because
I can give my input but also learn a lot from other colleagues how did you come up with the
name deltics what does that mean you know it’s interesting this website I had
it long time ago I registered it back then because I was like okay the word is moving more to analytics but back then
there was not really the AI word you know it was more like data analytics so you get the data and you try to do something with it and I’m a big fan of
dis salination even though some people would say like it has negative effects but we can talk about it later but so I
I was saying like the word is Shifting more to more data and more technology and Innovation so if you marry the both
words you know Antics and desalination it comes this allytics so I just registered that domain long term long
time ago and when I starting the company I said you know what this is one of the biggest drivers desination and uh
optimizing the data of course our business is not about about desination only so we do anything related to water
and water reuse but this is how it started they say that you’ve got a
create your own word in order to really own the brand I I’m betting there’s not
a Chick-fil-A over in Dubai is that a correct statement uh no but we have something similar but yeah we don’t have
Chick-fil-A yeah not yet so so Chick-fil-A based here in Atlanta they
actually decided not to release the chicken sandwich because they couldn’t own that name the chicken sandwich and
that’s why they came up with this madeup word chick Phil a and that’s what you
did that’s interesting W when you try to get ideas
for what you’re going to post on social media what’s your process now I’m trying to pick your brain for my selfish needs
right now but it’s it’s hard when you’re trying to think okay what’s something we haven’t talked about what’s something
somebody’s struggling with how can I help them I’m just curious what do you do to try to figure out the best content
choices to put out there so it’s challenging as you said sometimes it’s just out of the blue you know like I’m
in a conference I’m in a meeting and I see a topic I say okay that’s interesting for people to to to discuss
so I try to post a question and this how usually orig I started with all the water questions so I try to post a
question that will kind of engage people to talk about it and then everybody will
learn from everyone so this is one way another shift I do sometimes is by
picking a topic that is trending or or really a challenge and then interviewing
somebody who’s expert in the topic and I’ve seen that you know the more you pick the brains of other people you make
the discussions more uh enriching and and luckily in this industry we have really great minds you know I mean you
you meet with tons of people every day and you see how how good they are so this is second second way of of picking
some topics and I think the Third Way is based on people approaching me and telling me look I would love to talk
about uh this topic it’s interesting for the audience can I join you in one of the discussions or can you post about
this or can you ask this question so it’s a mix of of me searching for a topic or seeing something on LinkedIn
and say oh it’s interesting for the audience or somebody else reaching reaching out have you ever posted
something and it didn’t go over the way you had intended I think the first post I posted
was interesting I mean during Co this was during Co so so my question was is
the serenation expensive you know and it was really interesting how all the post
came F some people against the salination some people with the salination so it went really almost viral because of the debate it generated
and the interesting part is that I got lot of people commenting and posting why they were not from within
the industry but they hear about this alienation you know and then the first thing that come comes to them through
the media so so it was kind of interesting it didn’t really go bad in
the sense of bad you know but uh but I have couple of post that went bad I don’t really remember the topics but
what I do usually I I just delete them you know so so there’s no point of fighting when something goes wrong
better to take it out because then you can get some bullies some people you know talking not really being
constructive so so I think best is is to delete them and and avoid all the uh because at the end of day we’re here to
to uh deliver a message to help people understand the industry to learn more and interact and not really to to be
political or or you know religion related or all these sensitive topics I
couldn’t agree with that more I went to a course that talked about how to boost
your social media ratings and how you should use hashtags and all of that and they were all about dividing people
instead of bringing people together and if you got people arguing and and saying
that you didn’t know what you were talking about or having very uh different views in a in in not a nice
way that boosted ratings and that’s not this industry that’s not what we’re
about and we’re not going to solve anything that way correct definitely one time I had a person writing a nasty
comment so I learned also so either I delete the comment or I block it or I can report the person but the one of the
most effective strategies is just ignore the comment and then it goes down in the
algorithm so nobody sees it you remember like when check some links you see like more comments nobody will go and click
no more comments and go down down down to the last one you know so sometimes this also works so it depends on the
context well as if you didn’t have enough going on you decided to do your own conference last year tell us about
that experience you know you always connect the dots somewhere somehow when I was at
University I used to work as part-time for a conference organizer so they used to do like big events in Telecom and it
was like parttime so when they are close to the event I’ll come and help them and so on so so I I love this field you know
but this is like 25 years ago you know and uh when we started the the Celtics
in in Africa something I was seeing missing is that there are a lot of misconceptions you know when you talk
about Africa globally and so on so I said okay why don’t we have a big conference where it it kind of uh allies
people from different parts of the world to talk about knowledge and technology versus talking about the different
locations different markets and so on and and the focus was more on on telling
the companies to join us and not talk about themselves more talk about specific application so it’s like really
a technical uh commercial knowhow versus uh branding so the first year it was
relatively a smaller event and we started it the first year and uh
interestingly is that I saw a lot of uh interest in this event and this year we said okay you
know we’re going to go make it more uh professional so we’ve hired a third
party contractor for the back end so we made an exhibition at the conference so it was like a virtual exhibition
interactive and so on and what I appreciated is a lot of company came on
board and sponsor sponsored the event not really because of the audience only to get like this big exposure but
because they believed in the mission we are doing and they were more like supportive because we came asking for
Budget at towards the end of the year and you know like usually end of the year most companies have sorted out their already spent all their marketing
budget so so coming and telling me like look we can provide this amount of money
is it okay for you and so on yes of course just join us you know and we want the more we are in this event the better
so and and it really gave of motivations for my team in Africa because they saw
that even though they are doing something niche in Africa but lot of big players are supporting them you know
like Veolia like hack like all the big names were sponsoring this this event so
it created a lot of self-confidence in our team that uh what they are doing is getting noticed in the global Water
space is there going to be a dyotics 2024 oh definitely definitely we’re
already now thinking it through and next week we have our uh second annual meeting internal meeting we’re hosting
it in Nairobi and we’re going to to talk about it so we’re going to plan how we
can go even deeper and and making it more uh worse for people when they
attend more valuable for people when they attend so yeah definitely I really enjoyed it I didn’t see all of the
papers but the ones that I saw were very thought-provoking and you had a great
lineup of experts in field definitely yeah the experts were amazing and and
the learning content you know this is what I love about it so what we do we we republish the the videos and on YouTube
and I as newcomers in my team so to go and watch some videos depending on their
interest and because it’s a lot of learning you know so so they learn a lot from just going and watching and and the
business uh and the model is mainly very short presentation so I challenge them all to present in 10 minutes we don’t
want this like 30 minutes presentations and people get bored so so every expert will have 10 minutes to deliver the best
he can you know so it’s it’s really challenging for for our experts myself and my team we’re trying to create
videos through a training course on how to get people to do better practices and and water treatment and also to have a
training resource when people hire new people and we’ve been consuming a lot of
content on how to do that badly and how to do that better and one of the things
that they said how you can do that badly is exactly what you said making it too long and the ideal video is 3 to 7
minutes they say and people would much rather do 30 three minute videos than
they would with the equivalent all in one video and it’s almost like they get a sense of accomplishment that hey I did
30 things here instead of just one thing but the interesting thing was the retention was better yeah yeah
definitely I agree with you I mean definitely if it’s shorter it will be more engaging and people be proud of
themselves they listened to 30 topics you know ver is just one topic so so yeah I fully agree with you so with that
you and I attend a lot of conferences and you can’t go to a water conference
whatever the topic is you’re going to hear about water scarcity and you say
okay that’s one way of looking at it but there might be a better way of looking at it yeah you know this is my biggest
frustration in every single conference or exhibition or our major event the are
even investor presentations pictures from the all these startups everywhere we talk about water
scarcity like the word is gloomy there is so much water but there is water scarcity and and it really kills me
because because in in today’s age we have the Technologies to treat any type of water so so we we shouldn’t be
talking about water scarcity we should be talking about water abundance and and in 2024 I I decided that in every single
conference I will go to I will talk about water abundance you know and if somebody talks about water scarcity I’ll
stop them and tell them but there’s plenty of water what are we doing about it and and on your podcast is the first
time I’m mentioning it this in 2024 so it’s kind of a new thing well I think it’s a great thing to talk about because
okay it’s very passive when we talk about water scarcity and I don’t think anybody would argue with that but when
we talk about abundance it now puts the the power on us to do something about it
it’s there we just got to figure out how to bring it to where it needs to be how
to clean it to where it needs to be correct and you know like when you think about it of course there is a sea where
you have plenty of water it’s it’s salty water but it’s plenty of water you have the underground water the rivers but you
have water every where even in our toilet you have water going out you know and and today it’s still crazy like you
you bring water from far away you pump it you spend energy at the day in times where we talk about energy and CO2
emissions so you pump the water miles away you consume it and then you pumps
it again miles away to dispose it and treat it so it’s it’s really the whole
way of looking at water is completely distorted and and that’s why we need to start changing the narrative and saying
that we have plenty of water what are we doing about it and how can we use it
consume it in the same location versus really having to go and fetch water from all around the world so when you have
those conversations at conferences where does the conversation go from there look
I think I think the problem we have is as industry is we always talk among each
other so when you go for example to the major water shows the motor major events
it’s basically water people talking to water people and each one of us is trying to sell his technology so so we
have all the Technologies but but I think we’re missing the point we’re not talking to those who can make it happen
so for example politicians so the political will is really key in making things things happen because you need
the legislations to be supportive there are a lot of cases I can talk about lot of cases where they have done things
differently only because of a political will and because the government are are the politicians they said you know what
we have a challenge we have to fix it and we cannot continue like this you’re
of course talking from a Global Perspective and and we’re very privileged this podcast gets listened to
all over the world are there different messages where we should be talking to
the people that are in political power should we have a message over here in the United State should be there be a
message over where you are in Dubai should there be a separate message over in Africa or
what are the messages and and what can we do about it as the scaling up Nation
it’s a great great question Trace I think the more we can show these
politicians examples of how other regions are other countries have done
things differently then they see the potential because if you don’t know what what’s possible you will never go and
and create a legislation around it so for example if you took on on Hong Kong in the 60s they had a challenge don’t
have enough water it’s an island you know so and they don’t have much water so they mandated that going forward
every single new building will have seawater toilet flashing it’s not rocket
science you know it’s flashing your toilet with seawater but it has to be implemented you know so they issued a
legislation forcing all the new buildings to have seawater toilet flashing which means you have to invest
in a network uh to distribut sea water across the city every building has to have a separate piping Network to be
able to have corrosive water going through their toilet flashing so everything has to be changed but this
was a legislation so today 85% of of all the toilets in Hong Kong are flashed uh
with sea water which means 20% reduction of the water consumption this would have never happened if there was no political
will same thing for example in China what they are doing now about the sponge cities so slowing down the water you
know the challenge we have today is that water uh there is rain there is floods because everything we don’t allow the
water to stay so it’s all built and water goes as quickly as possible so
slowing down the water creating this reservoirs creating these tanks these Terraces where water can get stuck and
and released slowly in Namibia for example niia is one of the first users
of waste water for drinking application so they are among the first and you will
not think in Africa you’ll have a country who’s using waste water now you have projects for example in Orange County and the US going for even maybe
indirect water use so they they store them underground and then they pump them again so there are a lot of cases where
things have been done differently Singapore for example you know about new water where they have created a force
source of water they call it new water and it’s sold to Industries through a different network of water Network and
so on so I think the message should be to to all the politician is that look we
have to look at Water differently we understand water is not sexy it will not get you the elections because you know
it’s not an infrastructure that you see like a bridge if you build a bridge everybody will see it say oh our politicians are doing something water is
underground you know so nobody will see it so so we have to to tell them that
look you can do things differently and you can talk about it it’s it’s a great like new water in in Singapore is their
proud everybody talks about it always because I teach it at school and everything the United Nations has their
sustainable development goals and goals six is to make sure that water is
available and sustainable and sanitized to everybody on this planet that’s
something that is near and dear to your heart but there might be people here today that are just hearing that for the
first time can you talk about sg6 and how you’re getting involved with
that it’s excellent that you brings this up so sdg is part of multiple goals so
the you United Nations as you mentioned have put multiple goals to improve lifehood you know and improve human
capital across all the world because they saw there are some disparities so for example uh some of the goals like
sg2 is about sustainable cities and communities sdg8 about decent work and
economic growth to give chance for for people to get a better job and and grow economically and so on sdg14 on the
climate action so so there are multiple sdgs one of them is about water and the
idea was that there are still people today who don’t have access to portable water basically they have to go and walk
miles away to get uh water for for drinking water and imagine how many hours you’re wasting per day to just to
get water so you don’t have uh time to do something more productive you cannot
go to to school for example because usually it’s girls who go and collect the water and also you don’t have toilet
flashing in in your houses so it’s even worse you know so a woman has to go outside at night to go to do her needs
which is not safe and so on and all the focus was on uh the to to push and have
equal access to water and sanitation across all the planet unfortunately we’re not there yet but we’ve made a lot
of progress but it’s no like un is going to miss on all the goals we’re going to miss on all the goals we haven’t done
much traction very quickly the goal is for us to have water
and I ization for everybody that resides on planet Earth by
2030 well on my calendar we got six years left on that what do you think
what’s your prediction how close are we going to come are we going to hit it no there not we’s not and there is now a a
big uh understanding that we’re not and that’s why all the talk is now about how
what we should we do differently and and how can we change the narrative so you have got all of these
IND water treaters listening to this podcast I’m sure nobody’s surprised that
we are not going to meet that goal and I sure it was a great goal and everybody was excited about it when they made it
how many years ago was that it’s a good question I don’t know Sean I don’t know either but I’m sure everybody applauded
themselves and it was great and I love how you’re changing the conversation hey
the tools are already there we don’t need to talk about the problem we need to talk about how we’re going to solve
that so with that in mind we need to reset that date obviously but with all
the water treaters that are listening today what do you want them to do to try
to help get us back on track to whatever that new new date is going to be yeah
you you know there’s something called the transfer Paradox and this is where where a
wealthy Nation gives free of charge technology to a poorer country so and
that’s why they call it transfer Paradox the wealthy Nation gets richer and the poorer uh country gets poorer because
they will not invest in a local solution they will just be dependent on a foreign technology which is not maybe addressing
their needs so I think as as water uh engineers and water companies we need to
be closer to the ground and understand what’s really the problem and rather than giving equipment or are giving the
technology trying to develop technology Loc with with the local people if it’s in in
Latin America or or Africa where there is really a need because then you can
understand what what Solutions can be manufactured locally what solution can be maintained you know because you need
the maintenance this the key part of it there’s no point of sending a a reverse Osmos system if nobody can later on
maintain it and I think this how we need to start changing because some some
technology for us which is really required fired might be a overkill for
for a village in Africa and and also you have lot of change difference in terms
of landscape so in Africa you have lot of uh fragmented and decentralized uh
treatment situations you don’t have the luxury of having a big Network and and
pumping water because it’s the landscape is very fragmented it’s huge it’s massive you know in if you if you go for
example in Zambia to to go and see a mine you have to fly to the capital then take another flight and then drive miles
away it’s not it’s very huge as a continent so so that’s why we really
need to be on the ground and to understand what are the solutions that can be jointly developed versus just
sending technology and I think this is where we’re missing big is that we’re putting lot of money in technologies
that are not sustainable in Africa an example that you don’t think about in in
let’s say in the developing economies like Europe or the US you have lot of dispensers of water that you pay with
SMS you know so you go on the dispenser you put your code and then you get a liter of water you get five liters of
water and then you pay through your mobile phone for the five liter water if you have filled in your own bucket you know so these are things you will never
think about in uh in developed economies and and these have been developed locally so if if you ask somebody
outside to provide water he would have brought in a water treatment plant but who’s going to maintain it and pay for
the fees and so on so they’re great points and a lot of times people have the best intentions but once they leave
they don’t think about how things are going to be maintained what how is that really going to be sustained there’s a
group that we try to support it’s called World Vision and they do a global 6K uh
every year and this year it’s May 18th and uh they call it a 6K because as you
alluded to the average person that doesn’t have access to clean drinking
water has to walk 6 kilometers to get water that most people would not want to
drink and along those paths they’re they’re not in school so they’re not getting educated they’re on some paths
that maybe people that are nefarious that are stealing kids and taking them
into human trafficking and other horrible things so just by bringing water into where they are it changes
everything and I love this organization because not only are they bringing awareness to that
they’re also making sure that they understand the infrastructure that’s coming in and they’re responsible for it
they know because they’ve been part of it how to build it how to maintain it correct and and as you said you know
having the local partnership is key and it’s very challenging like like really for people to have access to water one
time I was in Nairobi and you know as a startup you always go through up and down mindset that you know you’re sometimes motivated sometimes you’re
down and so on so I was driving in Nairobi and uh I see an old man cleaning
his his face with water from rain in a pothole on the street you know so this
is for him the clean water he can have access to I mean it’s not clean water you know but this is what’s available
for him to clean his face to wash his face so that’s where you feel like really how blessed we are and and how
lucky we are in not to have these challenges but then you think that okay you what I have to do more and and try
to help locally and find Solutions and that’s how you believe more on this on what we’re doing as a water
industrialist in terms of uh bringing technology and solutions to to uh
developing economies it is hard to think of when you’re just used to going into
the other room turning a faucet and clean drinkable water comes out in
abundance and what if that didn’t happen I mean how would our day change and
every thought now is around water I think that really changes how we need to
get involved and and how how incredible this crisis is yeah definitely you know
and and to come back to your point on what can we do differently we need to think midterm to
long term and not like immediate uh return on investment so for example now there’s
something called the African Continental Free Trade Agreement okay free trade
area that is now developing across 55 African Union countries so imagine the
market it’s 1 billion population that going to grow in terms of population the
youngest population on on the planet and also economically it’s improving you
have more industrialization you have more uh urbanization and so on so the pressure on water is is higher but the
potential is even bigger so it’s not like the EU or the us yet but as a
market it’s it’s really becoming big and it’s it’s a free trade agreement so you can move Goods almost everywhere in
Africa it’s in the process so it’s not yet finalized across all Africa but today you have areas so so imagine if if
the uh Global multinationals start putting plants locally in Africa to manufacture things locally not only they
will create jobs but they can also tap into a huge Market all across uh Africa
so these are the things we need to start thinking differently so then we can really impact sg6 and get there you know
versus doing things outside I’ll give you a quick example so if you’re buying
let’s say a chemical uh from the US for testing reents for testing water so a Us
customer will buy it let’s say for $1 an African customer will buy it for $3 because you have to ship it by air it’s
hazardous it cost much more to ship and then the local mark up and and so on so you end up one to three ratio but then
the purchase raing power of an African customer is maybe two three times less than an American customer so so the
ratio is like 1 to six 1 to8 you know and that’s why we need to shift uh the the thinking you know and and start
finding it’s like like the US companies and the European companies went to China and manufactured in China and were able
to get good understanding of the Chinese market so we have people that are in charge of very large companies that has
the intellectual property of the equipment that we’re talking about what do you want them to do to help this
crisis and then also we have people that are listening that just work for a water treatment company what can they do yeah
and and exactly what you mentioned that’s what I spend most of my time when I’m in in conferences because I get to
know these CEOs and talking to them and I try to explain the potential in Africa because all these companies they have
shareholders you know so they cannot just go and say okay I’m going to open a manufacturing plant they need to understand more and I think ADV is is
the best way to to to get there so for example in some of the conferences I’ve
done African panels I brought in some African uh leaders to talk about their Market about their potential in front of
the global audience and and vice versa so I think communication is really key
like events like the decid ex water Week events like all these Global conferences they really help people to connect and
understand and understand the needs for for people who want to volunteer and so on I always encourage them to find a
local partner not just go and and work remotely so some people they go and they
spend one week in Tanzania or two weeks it’s very good because it gives them like really is like when we go to
customers we go on on the site correct because we want to understand the customer same thing if you go in the
country and you spend a week or two weeks it’s very rewarding not only because you’re doing something good but
also because you start understanding how things are are run and and it’s it’s
really inspiring w we spoke about sg6 but what about Private Industry what
are some things they can do yeah you know private Industries are are one of the biggest users of water because it
touches everything it touches their makeup water their processes their discharge and and that’s the thing I I
like to focus a lot about because we might have water scarcity but what’s
what is making it worse is that Industries are taking more of this water and also they are charging more of waste
water so so they are big problem of water scarcity but they are also
noticing that they can be part of the solution and you’ve seen like lot of uh announcements from Microsoft from Google
from abmf PNG all of them they want to uh contribute and there there’s
something concept now called water positive so these industries are trying
to improve their water balance so basically they want to generate more water than they consume and the
challenge today is that many definitions are different so what do you call water positive what do you call sustainability
what you call water balance so it’s all different definitions and there is now a a think tank I’m part of a water
positive think tank which is Association of of multiple leaders in the industry
and very Global very diverse and we’re trying to First have the definition of
what is water positive so everybody can align to it but also having a certification in place
so for example if uh if food and beverage manufacturing plant say I’m water positive can you prove it can you
show it what does it mean and what is the process you have in place so so and I think this is big because it will be
similar to the CO2 carbon credits where where people transfer carbon credits and
and the good thing is that all these industries they have the financial means to make it happen you know it’s it’s
different than talking to a municipality or a government employee these are like industry they want to generate returns
and they want to show also their investors that they are working closely to to achieve uh a sustainable goal and
also they are becoming more and more faced with populations around them where they are competing with them on the
water uh resource so that’s why they have to become more and more efficient in terms of uh water consumption how
they use water and what what do they do with it and I think it’s exciting because now you’re seeing all these major players are talking about their
goals of reducing water and and so on and those companies are making products
and consumers are becoming more and more conscious of the products that they’re purchasing and they want to know the
products they’re purchasing are doing a better job for sustainability for the environment so they’re honestly being
forced into doing those things but by doing that by by supporting companies that do have an initiative to help the
things that we’re talking about we all play a role yeah and it’s excellent for all of us because the water industry is
very Innovative people think it’s it’s kind of boring indust but it’s not if you look we have so many Technologies
it’s just question of applying them and having this industrial uh space will help us because Industries are usually
very fast in terms of adopting Technologies if it works they do a pilot if it works they take it they don’t go
through a lot of bureaucratic uh you know approval because as you said they are they have return on investment they
have shareholder they have public who’s going to buy from them or not so they want to show how good they are doing for
the environment so so I think this is one of the biggest vectors for us in terms of uh growth but not only growth
in the sense economic but also growth in terms of awareness because they will be the messengers they will go and talk how
great they are doing in terms of uh reusing water and and discharging glass
and so on so it’s it’s excellent time to be in the industry Wally before we get to the lightning round questions what
what conferences are we going to see at this year so you know it’s it’s always very challenging to to to decide on the
conferences so so what I’m trying to do is to be really in the major events where I can make an impact and also of
course learn a lot and also I want to to to expand my uh understanding of the
water industry because as you mentioned what happens in the US is different than other parts of the world so so I’m I’m
going to be attending few shows in Europe so WX in Madrid WX Global in Madrid in March and then there is a
global Water Summit in London and eat in in
Munich but then I’m expanding also more to to Mexico I went last year for
AquaTech I gave kot speech it was really interesting for me and eye opener to see
what’s happening in Latin America so I’m going again this year to Aquatic Mexico but also aquatic China this year so it
will also give me a different understanding about the market and of course WC is is it’s my favorite event
so I always go back to W you know so and lastly we’ll have few events in Africa but these are more customer facing
events in Africa for our uh company so where we can help and advocate so it’s
yeah it’s going to be busy and uh but at the same time exciting because I have a lot of content to publish you know and
share with the audience so so it’s a good learning for everyone speaking of that content where can people find you
so best place for me is Linked In because because I really believe that that as a water professional and maybe
any other industry but but for the water industry is the best place to learn on what’s Happening recently in the
technology what’s happening who’s meeting who who is who and also what are the top topics the trends is UN LinkedIn
because everybody is talking un LinkedIn about the technology and and companies are also all pushing their content on
LinkedIn it used to be a job portal it’s not anymore a job portal you can get much much more returns from from the
site and the other thing I encourage also people to go on YouTube also because in YouTube as you said like lot
of content there’s lot of content and people are developing content you can learn a lot from this uh I’m not very
active on YouTube I’m trying to push more videos on YouTube but LinkedIn definitely is where you can find me
YouTube is amazing because when you post to YouTube transcripts go all over the
place and it makes it easier for people to find you there’s so many things that are built into that Google platform and
of course Google dominates all the search engin so yeah it’s just uh that’s where you want to get your stuff for
that reason correct and and I can also in YouTube as you mentioned it’s well done for such things so it’s basically
you have a library on LinkedIn with time you don’t cannot find the videos while on on on YouTube you can always find
them grouped under categories and so on so yeah this what I need to Double Down efforts this year W you were here once
before you already answered our standard like lightning round question so I have a few for you this time around if you’re
ready yes please my first question is you’re a water guy you’re a very well-
read water guy what are some of your favorite water references so in terms of
references earlier I was a lot involved on the field so it was more like uh
technical so so one of my favorite books back then was the N NCO water handbook it was like really a thick book where
you can get all the answers you want today unfortunately I’m not anymore really on the book I’m more on On Tools
so for example uh chat GPT so if I want something I will go and ask chat GPT and
then challenge it to to come up with a better answer or a different because I think it’s you can dive into it and now
the latest tool I’m using is per perplexity doai it’s also a search engine but it’s better structure than
than chat GPT and it gives you a lot of insights because at the same time it searches the web and gives the
references so it shows what are the references coming from so so I’m seeing
more like the shift from static books to more digital versions that you can more
and more uh probe and Challenge and prompt you know to get better answers I think one of our goals as
industrial water Traders is we have to find our replacement at least our
replacement if not more and unfortunately we’re not getting people that are rushing into to this industry
so I’m curious what are some things you think we should be doing to make sure we’re encouraging people to join this
amazing industry I fully agree with you it’s it’s really amazing and and we need
to spend time talking about it the challenge is that it’s not sexy in terms of Young Generation when they they go
they look okay I can be digital I can go AI I can so we need to talk about how
these Technologies are embedded in our space you know like digital marketing we’re really good in digital marketing
but we should talk about it like you can come and do digital marketing for water which is more rewarding because it’s
it’s a social impact uh activity water so I think we should always talk about
the water how impactful it is on everything we do and encourage people to join so for example you get chemist
doing chemistry we should encourage them to come and and tackle the water chemistry versus going to a
petrochemical or or different Technologies and and we need to to do more advocacy going to
universities encouraging intern internships last year I had a intern
from uh secondary classes she was like 15 I bet you this lady will will go later once she goes to to work she will
be looking for something or study something related to the water industry because she so differently you know if
you don’t give them the chance to see what is water and the impact of water they will not really find it
attractive right now as we’re speaking you are nine hours ahead of me in time
zones you are in Dubai so w what’s a fun fact about Dubai that we should all
know so fun fact mixed with water okay so so we have one of the largest
fountains you know and and the same company who built this Fountain is the one who did the Bellagio in Las Vegas so
so you see like it’s really a global world and and we we’re tackling similar Technologies and all around the world
but but what I love about it is that it’s it’s massive when when you see the fountain and you understand the treatment technology behind it so so you
think that really we’re really good in terms of of uh Innovation because I mean
20 years ago I’m sure nobody would have thought they can make such a fountain working without avoiding any scale on
the nuzzles you know and biofouling and Legionella and so on so so it’s really a
great one to watch I mean engineering wise not not not just the visual part
the Burge Khalifa is on my list have you been there I’ve been there and in fact now I can see it I’m in front of V Khalifa and the
fountain is next to the ver Khalifa and yeah it’s it’s a Marvel it’s a Marvel of
engineering and again the water part was also challenging how do you pump water 800 meters you know above without
bursting the pipes so they had to come up with solutions to to get the water up and how do you take the waste water out
you know so so all of this shows like like how where we are in terms of
innovation I’ve read so much about that build building and the construction it really was a modern Marvel they had to
reinvent how they pump and mix concrete because they were going up so high it’s
just amazing so if anybody wants to I don’t know turn on the Discovery Channel there’s probably a dozen shows out there
on it it is just fascinating but I would love to have you here around come and visit us and and then I’ll take you
around and see all the Technologies and what’s happening in the city it’s really fascinating I mean when you think and
this comes back again to the vision and the political will you know if you have the right political will you can make
anything achievable so that’s why I always emphasize on if you want to make a a shift and and move from scarcity to
abundance we need the political will and we need to advocacy to get there it’s a
great way to wrap up the show and I’m taking you up on that offer we I’m going to make my plane tickets right after we
finish this recording that’s excellent that’s that’s very good news Wally thanks for once again coming on the
scaling up H2O podcast thank you TR for hosting me it’s always an honor to be
here thank you again W I love all the content that he puts out on social media
there are several people that are as consistent with content as we are on the scaling up H2O podcast and I love
sharing content with them we kind of challenge each other to make sure we’re always on time and we’re always putting
out the best content and I’ve met so many people within in that space that have just made me better at what we do
here each and every week and walli is of course one of those people I love how
he’s getting involved with a lot of these associations to bring what he brings to social media to all of these
conferences so hopefully I will see wed soon at a conference that we are both
attending and Nation you heard it here I got an invitation from W to come visit
him in Dubai I’ve always wanted to go to Dubai it’s just really cool what they created there
and how cool was it when I told him that one of my favorite structures was the
Burge Khalifa and he said oh I’m looking at it out of my window right now how
cool is that my son and I love watching documentaries on how they built the
birge Khalifa and it was really a modern Marvel in fact that was probably one of
the shows that we watched it has so many records now you might not know it’s 160 stories it’s
2,762 ft tall that’s 828 M if you’re not
on the imperial system and it has all of these records it’s the tallest building
in the world it’s the tallest freestanding structure in the world it has the highest number of stories in the
world it’s the highest occupied floor structure in the world it’s the highest
outdoor observation deck in the world it’s the longest travel distance
elevator in the world it’s the tallest service elevator in the world and it is
the tallest of the super tall apparently there’s a category of super tall skyscrapers well it is the tallest of
that there is just so much that they had to reinvent in order to create
this structure they had to figure out how to get concrete pumped up so high
without it itself starting to cure before it got there and of course as you can imagine things get pretty heavy if
you’re pumping them up that high they had that issue with water and they had to figure out all these booster stations
they had to make sure people were safe if there was a fire so they had to do all of this stuff they had to figure out
how to make the building structurally sound because as we all know skyscrapers
need to sway and I don’t know if you’ve experienced that before but I was on the
top of the Weston Building which is one of the tallest buildings here in Atlanta
70s something floors I was the president of the association of water Technologies I got the privilege of staying in the
Jimmy Carter presidential suite and let me tell you when you put your head down on the 70th something floor it would
Sway and you could feel it and I told myself hey I studied physics I know if
it wasn’t Swain I would have to worry but still trying to go to sleep and knowing that you are sway that was
something interesting I can’t imagine what it’s like on the top of the Burge
Khalifa but W I’m going to take you up on that offer you know a couple of years
ago I can’t remember the organization it was around covid so it was actually cancelled I was asked to speak over in
Dubai so maybe I can get that gig back and go visit wed and I can bring back
some firsthand experiences around the Burge Khalifa well Nation I want to
introduce our friend James McDonald with a brand new installment of drop by
[Music] drop welcome to drop by drop with James
the podcast segment where we wonder explore think about imagine and learn in
duster water treatment you guessed it drop by drop
together do you know what I like to do sometimes do you I like to read the
summary of method and the interferences for water testing I do you should hang
out at parties with me I’m a real riot anyway there is a lot to be learned
by just reading these two sections of a test procedure for example did you know
the fer method of total iron converts all soluble iron in most insoluble forms
of iron in the sample to soluble Ferris iron then the soluble Ferris iron reacts
with 110 phenanthroline indicator to form an orange color in proportion to the concentration of the iron in the
sample the summary says it converts most insoluble forms of iron so right away I
could imagine exceptions to this caveat reading the interferences for the total iron test I see that insoluble iron
oxides in the sample may require a digestion to make them soluble I also noticed that malate at 50 migrs per
liter has no effect on results but what about over 50 Mig per liter that’s where
the phero method for total iron comes in I learned all of that by just reading
those two little sections of the test procedure what else is out there waiting to be learned
I’m James McDonald and I want to encourage you to be like water by forming bonds with those around you
dissolving new knowledge and making worthy ripples drop by
drop thank you James and Nation thank you for bringing an awareness to the
global Water Crisis maybe you had never heard of the sustaining Development Goal
six that we talked about today well now you do now you know that falls right in line with this 6K that we are doing
tomorrow we as water treaters I feel have a responsibility to make sure
people understand that one not everybody has access to clean sanitized drinking
water and we have a duty to make sure that the water that we have is being
treated properly like we do each and every day we have a knowledge because we
are in the industry but not everybody understands that and I challenge each
and every one of you to make sure people you’re talking with understand the
impact that they have on water and understand the impact of what would happen if we did not have water if it
was not distributed in the way that it needs to be Nation I can’t wait to see
your pictures tomorrow by hashtagging 6K for water and hashtagging scaling up H2O
I’m going to be out there at our favorite park with our team I can’t wait to see you and your team and I’ll have a
brand new episode for you next week on scaling up [Music]
H2O scaling up Nation there’s no doubt about it I love this industry I love to
train in this industry I love to coach in this industry and one of my favorite things is when I hear people receive
their certified water technologist exemp amination well I want to put all of those things together and offer you an
opportunity to build your confidence so you can take the cwt examination go to
scaling up h2o.com cwt prep and see the course that we have
created to help build you confidence so you can sign up and take your cwt
examination once again that’s scaling up h2o.com cwt prep