Edinburgh, Scotland – June 4, 2024
A pioneering project using FIDO AI to replenish water in London has earned our project collaborator Microsoft a prestigious award for visionary innovation.
The Lighthouse Awards recognise leading organisations that make outstanding contributions to enhancing water supplies and are made by the Brave Blue World Foundation.
Microsoft’s award-winning project with FIDO Tech and Thames Water in London uses FIDO AI to unlock the power of cross-sector collaboration to solve the pressing challenge of water scarcity.
In its first year, the joint effort significantly beat Microsoft’s stretching water replenishment target, and moved the global corporate closer to its commitment of being water positive by 2030.
What’s more, because it’s instantly replicable anywhere in the world the FIDO Plus collaborative model has already successfully spread to other stressed world watersheds.
Two more Microsoft projects are under way in the US and Mexico, and the partnership with FIDO Tech featured prominently in the company’s 2024 Environmental Sustainability Report.
FIDO Plus is also the engine at the heart of an ambitious catalytic community of corporates and utilities called ‘Water, United’ which aims to save one of the world’s most over-allocated rivers, the Colorado river basin.
Describing the model earlier in the year, Paul O’Callaghan, CEO and Founder of technology market intelligence company BlueTech Research, whose adjudicators select the award winners, said:
“This is a great example of Radical Collaboration for Regeneration and Innovation with Impact […] This partnership model represents something of a holy trinity; a water utility that has a water network with leaks, financing from one of the world’s largest tech companies which happens to have made a commitment to help off-set its water use, and a solution from digital data driven water technology start-up.”
At the ceremony in Edinburgh last night, Microsoft Water Program Manager Paulina Concha Larrauri invited FIDO CEO Victoria Edwards to collect the award with her.
Added Victoria: “This was our first project using FIDO AI and volumetric water benefit accounting to rapidly improve water availability in a water stressed part of #London by quantifiably finding and fixing large water leaks. It is a huge moment for FIDO AI and a huge moment for our FIDO Plus partnership, which is now operating in the US and Mexico, with many more projects and partners on the horizon.”
About FIDO Plus
Launched in April 2023, Microsoft’s project with FIDO Tech involves supporting the 10-year deployment of our pioneering AI on 350km of water pipes owned by Thames Water.
FIDO AI’s unique ability to accurately find, size and locate leaks, means Thames engineers can repair the biggest leaks first and save more water, faster.
Microsoft and FIDO worked closely with clean water consulting firm LimnoTech to develop the framework to translate leakage savings into reportable corporate water benefits using Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA).
The FIDO Plus project in London has delivered great results and is helping Microsoft to make significant progress against its commitment to be water positive by 2030.
And what’s more, the combination of VWBA and FIDO AI’s ability to accurately assess changes to in-pipe water volumes means FIDO Plus supports the adoption and accelerated scaling of any water saving technology through corporate sponsorship.
