Alumnus Ivo Arrey, co-founder of AbbaTek (AquaHacking Lake Winnipeg ’20) shares reflections on IH2O WIW2020
By Ivo Arrey, Co-Founder, AbbaTek Group
AbbaTek took its roots in the later half of fall 2019 but only went into full swing during the AquaHacking Lake Winnipeg 2020 Challenge when we registered to be one of the competitors to drive innovation in the water tech industry.
Because we are driven by community Science Initiatives, we take pride and passion taking part in such events with our main goal to bridge the gap between science and communities. Community Science is an emerging field which is also in line with the concept of regenerative capitalism and we at AbbaTek take pride in being one of those organizations who do not only want to push the frontiers of science but also to make meaningful, concrete impacts, on a community scale.
Here, we adopt the definition of Community Science as defined by the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC); as a connected or organized group of people who share a common geography, jurisdiction, set of characteristics, or interests and goals. This is where our interests with AquaHacking coincide and specifically to tackle the issue of microplastics pollution with our flagship product CompoundConnect whose summarized workflow is displayed in image below:
As a co-founder of AbbaTek Group, it was such an important milestone in our journey to have participated in Imagine H2O’s Water Innovation Week 2020 virtual conference thanks to the AquaHacking Alumni program. The week also concluded with a special discussion session with Jonathan Grant with some key take-away messages from both entrepreneur and investor perspectives.
The latter was the most striking aspect for me especially the aspects finding, selecting, supporting, and exiting water companies which are essential for every startup to know and stay in the game. Some buzz words are outlined below;
- Know your industry
- Know your customer
- Proven technology with clear path to profitability
- Valley of death (e.g technical, commercial)
- The perfect trio; Team, Market fit, Technology
- Show me where it is deployed and risk management framework
Moving forward, we will be advancing the new networks established during the conference to strengthen our relationships in the global water tech industry.
Aluta Continua!