Four teams from universities in Western Canada are beginning Foresight’s Kickstart program this month after achieving success in the AquaHacking Western Canada Challenge co-hosted by Aqua Forum and the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB).

The top four finalists have advanced from the Western Canada AquaHacking Challenge to take part in Kickstart, a Foresight Acceleration program that helps entrepreneurs validate their value proposition and explore product-solution fit. The teams will then refine their solutions, leading up to the AquaHacking final in September. 

We can’t wait to see what develops from these innovators. Welcome to:

• Algaegator: The team from UBC Okanagan has developed a solar-powered filtration system that uses a submerged pump to move polluted water into a tank for electrocoagulation to remove toxic chemicals.
• EcoFriendly WWT: This team from the University of Saskatchewan is optimizing the wastewater treatment plants using fate models. Additionally, maximizing the pollutant removal, agricultural water is being modified to be used as adsorbents for final filtration of the WWTP effluent.
• The SIP (Safety in Purification): The solution from this UBC Okanagan team is a mobile filtration station in the form of a gravity filter backpack, using carbon and membrane micron filters designed to last up to 128 weeks. It is a solution ideally built for remote communities to address drinking water contamination.
• Triple C: Focusing on improving water quality in Indigenous communities, this team from UBC Okanagan has developed a device to help prevent water contamination in water cisterns using a hydraulic coupling on the water delivery hose and the cistern lid.