Downer at Water NZ conference & Expo 2020

03/12/2020

The Water NZ Conference & Expo 2020 was held this week from Tuesday through to Thursday at Claudelands Arena in Hamilton, and it was fantastic to see so many of our water peers gathered together and their sharing their industry expertise.

Downer’s Water and Automation team hosted a trade stand at the expo where they showed off some impressive smart technology. We partnered with Tussock Innovation on a water network platform called Waterwatch Live, which connects any device in the field with the cloud so you can use the data to drive decisions about your network. We’re also sharing our Meter Reading App which gives our technicians the ability to speed up meter readings.

The Downer Gala Dinner was the highlight of the conference, with 560 people in attendance. As the sponsor of the event, we hosted several customers and partners and shared an evening of celebrating industry excellence, with special guest performance from singer Hollie Smith.

Utilities EGM James Kafanelis gave a speech to open the evening and talked about the changes ahead for New Zealand’s water industry. He noted that nurturing and training our people and thinking outside the box are the best ways to adapt to those changes and succeed in challenging times.

The Downer team had more to celebrate as the evening’s awards were announced. We are extremely proud of Water Serviceman Ethan Keith, who was named ‘Trainee of the year’! Congratulations Ethan on your excellent work since joining the Downer whanau in our Horowhenua Alliance team in 2018.

Then the ‘Safety Innovation’ Award was won by our Automation team for the development of the Downer Proximity App, which was created during the COVID-lockdown to help our teams in the field stay safely distanced. The award was accepted by Shannon Neyland and Hamish Morton.

A huge congratulations to our winners, and we look forward to next year’s event!