On 22 and 23 February 2023, Water Research Australia held its annual research and innovation conference at Bicentennial Park. SIMPaCT featured heavily during the second day of the conference that was titled NEXT WATER.
Image courtesy Water Research Australia
Water Research Australia emerged from the CRC for Water Quality and Treatment more than 20 years ago. Today it has more than 80 national and international member organisations and utility providers. Water RA is a well-supported, diverse industry/research network that identifies needs, funds research and communicates project findings.
In 2020, 2021 and 2022 the annual conferences of Water RA were cancelled due to COVID, so everyone was keen to get back together in 2023. More than 200 delegates from around Australia registered to attend the 2-day event.
Luckily for SIMPaCT, Waterview was selected as venue for the 2023 conference. Waterview is the big building located in the centre of Bicentennial Park with several small and large event and conference rooms.
Without our doing, we suddenly had more than 200 water experts, innovators, researchers, educators and investors at the very place where we have created a unique, and very smart irrigation system.
With the assistance of the fabulous Kathryn Nicholas from Water RA, we organised a lunch tour for 50 conference delegates. Participants of the tour were able to learn about our work during a 60-minute walk-n-talk experience that took them along five stops:
1. Project Introduction - at Waterview
2. Park History – at Lake Belvedere
3. Irrigation in Action – at the arc of pines
4. The Pumphouse – at the ballast tank
5. The Environmental Sensing Hardware – at the car park south of Waterview
SIMPaCT partners from Sydney Olympic Park Authority, Sydney Water, University of Technology Sydney, Total Water, Centratech Systems as well as our Project Manager Kat Vanderwal and myself provided in-depth information and answered many questions.
It was great to experience the level of interest in SIMPaCT by local government and industry representatives. Many thanks to Kathryn from Water RA to provide the platform for this event. Although it nearly ended in tears because of rain, we were lucky in the end and had a fantastic time in the park once more.
Cheers,
Sebastian Pfautsch
Image courtesy Water Research Australia