The eight suppliers who won a place to take part in United Utilities 2019 Innovation Lab have just completed the first week of a 10 week accelerator programme run in association with corporate innovation specialist L Marks.

Following the success of the inaugural Innovation Lab 2018, United Utilities selected the companies from 24 finalists who took part in the Pitch Day on 18th July.

The programme went live on 16th September – the Demo Day is scheduled for 4th December in the final week.

The businesses who hail from the UK, Denmark and Australia are collaborating with the water company to develop their ideas while gaining invaluable access to United Utilities’ resources, as well as industry-leading insight from specialist mentors.

United Utilities will decide which of the following companies they will enter into commercial relationships with at the end of the programme.

AJEA Products Ltd

AJEA is a product design and manufacturing company based in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone. Their core aim is to bring new and innovative products to a range of global markets. Working with United Utilities they will look to test their new concept in flood resilience - Quell™ - A passive barrier system, that doesn’t require any power source or human interaction to deploy

Aqua Consultants

Aqua Consultants are specialist engineering and technology consultants operating across the Water, Energy and Environment sectors. Using the right mix of data analytics and water industry subject matter expertise, Aqua can help our clients secure savings by identifying minimum build solutions for Capital Investment and real time monitoring of assets. To ensure OPEX savings are identified, quantified and materialized through actionable intelligence.

FIDO

FIDO (Free Inserted Data Objects) sees the insertion of three free-floating spheres that travel in any pipe size through the water network first collecting, then uploading and analysing the data in the cloud using FIDO’s differential analytics algorithm. Analysed data is sent back to the engineer’s phone or tablet clearly identifying pipe anomalies such as leaks (size and location), air pockets and chokes to within one metre.

Emu Analytics

Emu Analytics provide software designed to ingest, analyse and visualise geospatial and temporal data assets, for the purpose of creating visual insights that are accessible to all within an organisation.

Headlight AI

Headlight AI is a sensory artificial intelligence (AI) company with a diverse team of scientists and engineers developing software and integrated solutions for robots and vehicles operating in harsh and complex environments. Their multi-sensor cross-learning technology provides improved perception and is currently being used for infrastructure inspection and monitoring within the water and rail markets. It is also being used to help develop autonomous vehicles (ground, water, and air based systems) that can operate in dark underground locations and in adverse weather conditions.

IntroDus

IntroDus is a mobile, cloud-based Pre and Onboarding solution which enables companies to create custom Pre & Onboarding content to share with new hires, with the aim of improving employee time to performance, stay longer and making them feel part of the team from day one.

Neptune Solutions

Neptune Solutions has developed a system for retaining and containing water. This patented invention consists of a metal structure/frame which is built from box sections and machined bars. The metal structure rests on four screw piles. Side plates and clamps are fixed to the sides of the barrier to allow more barriers to sit next to each other, forming a retaining wall of individual barriers.

Vapar

VAPAR helps water utilities speed up the repairs of their underground pipes. VAPAR's cloud platform automates the fault detection directly from inspection footage of sewer pipes turning a 2 week process into just 2 minutes.