WATEC 2013 Wrap-Up – a one of a kind opportunity for Israel’s water industry
“WATEC was one of a kind opportunity for us, as a start-up, to achieve very significant business leads,” says Udi Leshem, CEO of Aquanos, an Israel start-up offering energy efficient wastewater treatment solutions. Aquanos exhibited in a booth at the Innovation Pavilion, spoke at the WATEC conference and presented at CleanVest. Leshem also revealed that following these activities, Aquanos received a first offer of investment. “We are very grateful to the organizers and especially the team at Israel NewTech, who put together such a strong event, which brought us numerous business leads: potential customers, investors, strategic partners and distributors around the world.”
We also spoke with Oded Distel and Adi Yefet Beeri of Israel NewTech, the Ministry of the Economy’s program for the advancement of Israel’s cleantech industries, to find out what areas and technologies were at the forefront at this year’s event. “There was a lot of buzz around urban water this year,” Beeri told us, “The delegation from the OECD put considerable emphasis on this arena, and there are a number of Israeli companies active in this sphere which drew a lot of attention, including Iosite, Curapipe, Miya, Stream Control, Takadu and Dorot.”
Another area which is expanding rapidly is wastewater treatment, with innovative Israeli solutions in this arena coming from Aqwise, Bio Castle, Aquanos and more. In addition Beeri told us that American Water, a utility which manages a number of water companies in the U.S. was very impressed with the Israeli technologies presented at WATEC in the urban water sphere.
“This year’s WATEC was a very successful event, it was impossible to find an available hotel room in Tel Aviv already a month before,” said Oded Distel. At WATEC Israel NewTech continued its efforts to promote Israeli water technologies for the needs of different industries, one of the most prominent being the Oil & Gas industry, which is a huge consumer of both water and energy worldwide. “At the WATEC conference there was a round table discussion which focused on the water needs of the Oil & Gas industry, as well as a meeting with the Chinese Oil & Gas company CPCIS. They are very interested in implementing water solutions that are also environmentally friendly.” In general, Distel tells us, Chinese industries which perhaps in the past were less focused on the environmental aspect of industry, are placing more and more emphasis on it, and Israel’s water technology companies are well-poised to provide solutions that are both efficient and environmentally friendly.
Running the Oil & Gas round table was Dr. Gilead Fortuna, Head of the Center of Industrial Excellence at the Neaman Institute. The round table was attended by 12 experts in Oil & Gas from leading companies from the U.S., such as Dow, as well as Canada and China, along with heads of Israeli companies in that sphere such as Neurosoft, IDE and Amiad. We spoke with Dr. Fortuna on the potential of water technologies for the Oli & Gas industry: “In the last 10 years we have seen the emergence of frac water drilling, a process in which millions of gallons of water are blasted into the well bore to release natural gas. This technique is a huge game changer in the industry but it also brings with it enormous water consumption as well as water contamination issues. Israeli companies are developing unique solutions for this industry and we are already working on bringing them together with the relevant partners internationally.”
