Global Water Summit 2018: Transcending the boundaries of the water sector

The arrival of new technologies, businesses and sources of finance are blurring the edges of the water sector and empowering the global water industry to connect, innovate and rethink the way it does business. The Global Water Summit 2018 will address this trend as part of the event’s ‘Transcending Boundaries’ theme, with an opening plenary discussing this topic featuring Zanny Minton-Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, as the keynote speaker.

Now in its 12th year, The Global Water Summit is widely known as the leading water industry conference. The event is renowned for its high-level attendance, thought-leading content and unrivalled networking opportunities, attracting over 600 water industry leaders and business executives last year.

The 2018 Summit will focus on how cross-cutting issues emerging from the boundaries of the sector may drive performance and generate new opportunities for businesses that are ready to build and engage with the new models and stakeholders.

The world of water is being asked to step up, and the Global Water Summit will be a vital platform to map the future of the water industry:

• How is the migration of new and disruptive technologies from the digital revolution and the field of material sciences impacting scientific and technological development? Do these migrations signal an age of business process re-engineering?
• With the entry of non-traditional sources of finance and companies from different business backgrounds such as investment, software, ICT and construction, where is the impact of new financing tools and new sources of capital needed most? How much finance does the water sector need in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals?
• How can utilities and industries proactively respond to a changing environment? Are they moving overground or looking beyond the fence towards shared infrastructure and multi-use assets?
• Global v local — the internationalisation of the water sector is increasingly faced with contemporary political and environmental challenges. How can the water sector continue to foster a competitive market?

The Global Water Summit 2018 will be held at the Marriott Conference Rive Gauche Hotel Conference Centre in Paris on 15–17 April 2018. The summit will feature over five hours of one-to-one networking sessions and expert-led roundtable discussions, as well as a two-day agenda with session strands focused on Industry, Desalination, Finance, Technologies, and Digital Solutions.

The ‘Transcending Boundaries’ theme will be further explored in many of these agenda strands. For example, the first Finance session will bring together utility leaders in a workshop to discuss ‘blended’ finance structures, while the second Industry strand session will explore industrial synergies and new technology solutions.

2018 Agenda Session speakers include:

• Jeffrey Kightlinger, General Manager, The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
• Jerson Kelman, Chief Executive Officer, Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo - SABESP, Brazil
• Cecil McMaster, Chief Information Officer (CIO), The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, U.S.A.
• Jacques Euler, Beauty Division – Manufacturing Sustainability, Procter & Gamble
• Neil Brennan, Managing Director, Western Water, Australia
• Per Møller, Head of Symbiosis Center Denmark
• Sarah Le Gallou, Technical Lead Engineer – Water Resources, EDF

In addition, the summit will see new utilities inaugurated into The Leading Utilities of the World, a global network of the world’s most successful and innovative water and wastewater utilities working to foster innovation in the sector.

The Global Water Summit will also include the Global Water Awards 2018 Gala Dinner, which will take place on 16 April 2018 at the Pavillon d’Armenonville. The Global Water Awards reward initiatives in the water, wastewater and desalination sectors that are moving the industry forward through improved operating performance, innovative technology adoption and sustainable financial models, in 11 different awards categories.

Find out more about the Global Water Summit 2018 here: http://www.watermeetsmoney.com/.

Image credit: ©Dmytro Tolokonov/Dollar Photo Club