SWAN 16th Annual Conference: Make Water Work 036

This week's episode is a special on-location field report from the SWAN Conference — the Smart Water Networks Forum — held in Tampa, Florida. SWAN is a global annual event bringing together utility leaders, engineers, practitioners, and innovators to push the conversation on how the water sector adopts new technology.

I had the chance to facilitate a two-hour roundtable with Anthony DeRosa of ASDWA, exploring one of the most important and underexplored tensions in the sector right now: how does regulation fit into digital transformation?

Here's what we covered:

Why the water sector's regulatory framework was built for a different era

How governance lags are leaving utilities to modernize at their own risk

The funding misalignment that's blocking solution adoption

Why solving the most common problem — not the hardest one — is the key to scaling innovation

What it means to design tools for field workers, not just desk workers

Why deployment funding without sustainability is a dead end

If you work at a utility, an engineering firm, or anywhere in the water sector, these conversations matter. The decisions being made now about how we govern, fund, and adopt technology will shape the next decade of water infrastructure.