IWN UPDATE
FEBRUARY 2025
Hi everyone, welcome to the first IWN Update for 2025 and our first as part of the VicWater Update.
At the end of last year, I shared a reflection of 2024 with IWN Members. It was a year of exciting firsts, successful trials, welcomes, adoptions, and a refresh of our operating model and programs.
We welcomed Isobel Decru as our new Deputy Program Director. Isobel is no stranger to IWN, joining us from South East Water and the ARC Biosolids Centre at RMIT where she worked with IWN on the Pyroco Biosolids to Biochar project. We welcomed Victor Perton, Chief Optimism Officer at the Centre for Optimism and Director at Yarra Valley Water as the official IWN Ambassador. We also welcomed Kessia Thomson from Greater Western Water and Liz Rowland from South Gippsland Water onto the IWN Executive Team.
Among our firsts, we ran a data and analytics Hackathon focused on how we can use data and analytics to better care for our environment.
We launched 2 exciting circular economy initiatives – the Circular Economy Study Tours which will run a couple of times a year to visit and learn from organisations that reuse, recycle and harvest resources from waste streams, and launched our Circular Economy Podcast called the Ripple Effect – sharing insights and experiences from thought leaders in Circular Economy.
We delivered our first implemented Water Ministers Climate Innovation Challenge (WMCIC) Project. Winners of the 2023 WMCIC – Yarra Valley Water, Barwon Water and North East Water – have released a new guide and database of low-carbon concrete alternatives that are ready for immediate use in the Victorian water industry. You can find the guide at: https://vicwater.org.au/programs/low-carbon-concrete-mix-specification-tool/
We were also delighted that the Minister for Water announced a 3-fold increase in funding for her Challenge for 2024 and 2025.
We collaborated with WIOA to establish the Operators Trial Competition at the Victorian WIOA Conference. During the conference, Operators pitched to IWN their trial opportunities discovered at the WIOA Conference Trade Exhibition. Funded trials were announced at the conference dinner.
Our Annual Members Conference explored the theme of Collaborative Transformation through keynote addresses by our newest member GWMWater who presented on their digital transformation journey and by PUB Singapore who joined us in person to share how strategic collaborations are at the core of their transformation and innovation strategies.
If you’d like to catch up on the conference presentations and you work at an IWN member organisation, please drop us a line at enquiries@iwn.org.au for a link to the conference presentations. With the 2024 conference concluded, planning for the 2025 IWN Annual Conference is underway. Please save the date—28 July 2025. Further details and registration information will be available soon.
We continued to work on our portfolio of 44 active trials with the conversion of a number of completed trials to adoptions and strengthened our research partnerships to enable IWN to access leading edge research outcomes to transition into application trials.
We were delighted to be a collaboration partner with Barwon Water on the award of funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) of up to $3 million for the Green Oxygen for Wastewater Treatment project.
We continued to work on the IWN Operating Model to ensure our operations are lean and deliver the best possible value for members. Of note we:
- Established our Hub and Spoke operating model
- Launched of IWN Strategy on a Page
- Developed a set of IWN KPIs
- Improved our governance through refinement our investment management framework and the development of at trial services agreement
- Enhanced our Champions Program with a focus on leading and driving innovation including intrapreneurship skills
Looking forward, I am reminded of the lunar new year that we recently celebrated. The Year of the Snake is a time for growth, wisdom, intelligence and renewal – which beautifully describes the year ahead for IWN.
We have commissioned the development of a new website which will enhance members ability to access and share knowledge such as trial reports, video presentations and collaborate more effectively.
IWN will continue to work on developing our programs and their activities through alignment of our programs to members strategies to ensure we deliver value to our members and enhance our knowledge sharing systems and processes to more effectively facilitate knowledge sharing amongst our members.
We will continue to source and collaborate with strategic partners to deliver trial opportunities that bring global leading technology and innovation into the Victorian and Tasmanian water sectors that deliver real solution options to the challenges and opportunities within our sector.
2025 has started with a bang – join us at an IWN weekly update on Wednesday mornings to hear all about the tremendous work and opportunities happening in our programs. Watch your inbox for a link to our weekly updates soon. See you there.
Cheers
JC
For more IWN updates, see the posts below:
