First of all, I would like to Acknowledge
Stha, Thamu, Mo, Gugu,Mr L jawi & Mrs S Jawi, Babo, Zwelithini, Mbonge, Eng KG, Dr Martin & Family for the various roles they played in me going to Scotland and my stay there, I am forever grateful.
The thing about travelling is that if you keep your eyes and ears open you might learn a thing or two.
First of two incidents:
Check in time is fast approaching and I am walking towards the meeting point where my friend was to pick me up and take me to the airport. I got there about 4 minutes late from the agreed time.
“Dude why didn’t you take a taxi?, yes it’s going to cost you $10 for a 2 minute journey. What is $10 to the amount you paid for your visa and air tickets?” L. Jawi
Incident 2 (Had arrived in Glasgow and was with my friend Babongile):
Babo :Mtho where I left your bags is not safe do you have any valuables in them?
Me:Yes,mylaptop. Babo:iPassport yakho ulayo? (Do you have your passport on you?)
Me:Ehe (yes)
Babo:Yeah yiyo ivaluable yona leyo, lokhu okunye akuqakathekanga, [insert hysterical laugh while walking away] asambe. (That is the only valuable thing, the rest of the stuff is not important [laughs hysterically], let’s go).
These incidents left me wondering what other minors have I been majoring on in my life & I had plenty of time during the layovers to reflect…
My reason for going to Scotland was to attend the 13th Annual Congress of the Smart Water Networks Forum (SWAN) where I am part of the leadership team for the Rising Smart Water Professionals (RiSWP). Founded in 2010, SWAN is uniquely focused on increasing the awareness and acceleration of smart, data-driven solutions in drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater networks worldwide by bringing like-minded people together. By aligning industry thought leaders and fostering inclusive collaboration across municipal, commercial, academia, regulatory and non-profit sectors, they have become the key driving force in proactively influencing the smart water sector. I submitted an abstract with Engineer Kwanele Sibanda from the City of Bulawayo titled “Learning Outcomes from operationalizing smart pressure-reducing valves in fighting Non-Revenue Water in the city of Bulawayo” under the topic Quantifying ROI. Our abstract was accepted for the conference 🙂
Due to my late arrival, I managed to catch a couple of sessions as well as a site visit to a waste water treatment plant.
1. Adapting To New Climate Realities (Extract from Agenda)
Gain lessons on how environmental and climate-related pressures have sparked the acceleration of smart water projects focused on mitigating flood risks, preparing ahead of time for wet weather events, and forecasting overall water usage and control to maintain sustainable operations.
Moderator: Johanna Money, Researcher (Scottish Enterprise)
Speakers:
Yahya Ugrader, Net Zero Carbon Project Manager (Environment Agency, UK) & Paul Kirkup, Associate Director (Jacobs) “Implementing Condition Based Maintenance at Pumping Stations that Manage Flood Risk”
Joukje Keuning, Program Manager Infra 2025, Vitens & Rogier de Groot, Business Development Manager (Samotics) “Energy Optimisation of a Pumping Station via Smart Algorithms at Drinking Water Utility Vitens”
Raisa Kyrönseppä, Development Engineer, Water Distribution (Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority, Finland) “Forecasting as a Main Tool to Control Water Distribution”
2.Closing The Divide In Emerging Markets
Hear from leading smart water practitioners across emerging markets that are looking to help smart water move from early adopters to early majority.
Moderator: Helen Hulett, New Business Director (Talbot Group Ltd)
Speakers:
Ir. Abas Abdullah, Acting CEO (Air Selangor, Malaysia) “Air Selangor’s Digitalisation Journey”
Kwanele G Sibanda, Local Project Coordinator (City of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) “Smart Pressure Management”
Sourav Daspatnaik, Managing Director (Swach Environment Private Limited, India) “Unique Water Utility Serving across the spectrum Customers”
Key Take Aways
Water treatments plants are aged / aging across the board. They need to be retrofitted with morden technology (sensors, networking capabilities etc) that allow utilities to make decisions based on evidence and not judgement. These new systems must also be resilient and able to adapt to unforseen situations such as pandemics. Understanding the mindset and adjusting it or the environment is key in rolling out these systems. Sharing experiences among utilities and on platforms such as the SWAN conference has also eased the digital transformation journey for some utilities.
Study Tour
SWAN partnered with Scottish Water to host two simultaneous study tours, one to their Intelligent Control Centre and the second to Laighpark Waste Water Treatment Works sponsored by Metasphere.
Tour 1: Intelligent Control Centre
Tour 2: Laighpark Waste Water Treatment Works
My love for Waste(D) Water led me to Laighpark :).
Here we were to cover the following :
How the new exemplar WWTW application is utilised, which makes visible end to end performance of the WWTW.
Understand how condition monitoring is being used on the equipment, deriving better insights operationally and for investment needs.
Look at the final effluent monitoring equipment and how it gives 24/7 visibility of what the WWTW is doing, making visible opportunity and risk.
Discussion on the Real-Time control which optimises aeration and reduces energy consumption.
Top to bottom tour of the treatment works and general discussion on how wastewater is leading on a range of Transformation projects.
When I signed up for the tour, I began to mentally prepare myself for a smelly day… but to my surprise there was close to none onsite. Waste water treatment is a huge energy consumer therefore optimizing a treatment plant results in energy savings.
First up were the introductions, led by wastewater operations west manager,Nathan Wield. We were given an overlay of the projects Scottish water was undertaking / undertook, and how they were embracing failures as learning curves.
One of the key takeaways from the tour was how they managed to ensure the buy-in from the operators. The operators were involved in the UX design through consultations back and forth with the developers and have waste water digital champions (tech adept individuals who break down the complex bits of the systems for all to understand).
Overall, the conference was a thought provoking experience for me with a lot of positives drawn from the energy exhibited by the SWAN members…….and what’s a conference without sight seeing???
Thanks to Dr Martin Currie and family for showing me Scotland and giving me a taste of beautiful Scotland!! Ngiyabonga (Thankyou).
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