Presented by IWMI's Dr. Simon Langan at the IWA Water and Development Congress & Exhibition on December 2, 2019.

1. The Potential Role of Digital
Innovations in Addressing
Water Challenges
Dr. Simon Langan,
December 2019

2. What are Digital Innovations?
• Apps
• Artificial Intelligence and Big
Data
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Blockchain
• 3D printing
• Virtual/augmented reality

3. Why are Digital Innovations important?
• They are a game changer- agent
for transformation
- Medium for roll out practice at
scale
- Particularly for agriculture
- Youth, gender
• Technology is largely accepted
where accessed
• Ubiquitous and part of every day
life

4. Examples: Mobile phones and big data
• More households in developing
countries own a mobile phone than
have access to electricity or clean
water (World Bank 2016)
• The poor can benefit from digital
technologies even when they don’t
own a mobile phone or a computer
through wider service provision
• The internet promotes development
through three main mechanisms:
inclusion, innovation and efficiency.

5. Digital Innovations and IWMI (1)
• Mapping algorithm based on
MODIS data
• 8-days maps of inundation
extent
• Annual maps of maximum
inundation
• Inter-annual variation of regional
flooding extent
Regional Flood Risk Mapping

6. Digital Innovations and IWMI (2)
Evidence

7. The Future: Lots of opportunities
• In addition to developing
technologies and software and
‘bundling’
• Sharing data and information
from different contexts is central
to improving both current and
future water availability and
demand management
• Utilising data and digital
innovations to create evidence
that leads to changes in
knowledge, skills and action at
scale

8. The Role of IWMI
Convene
• Stakeholders
• Partners
• Co-investors
Co-design
• Open access
• Data cube and interfaces
• Events to engage and enthuse
Build and enable
• DI Apps as bundles
• Strengthen capacity
• Expand outreach

9. S.Langan@cigar.org