 It's humbling to be here today, particularly being the context of the two people who have just spoken. I've known Joan Rose and Professor Ogaki for many years, and it's really neat to see what they've done in their lifetime and how much they've changed things. But let's go back to the theme of this presentation and what we're really talking about here. We're talking about a change that is upon us that's really about change. It's not that long ago we can think in our professional lives when we were operating off of single objective optimization for particular purposes with highly fragmented authorities and a rate of change of population, of urbanization, and all the things we've been just talking about that was much slower than it is today and today is much slower than it will be in the future. And in the future, we're dealing with really a multi-objective world. We want to do that because we have expanded our objective function from thinking just about serving people water, for example, or cleaning up a river to thinking about how we manage the earth and the ecosystem holistically. So we've got multiple objectives and that has been an aspirational movement, but now in response to really hard-pressing problems like 155,000 people a day coming onto the planet. That's a million a week, 90% going to urban areas, 90% in developing countries. How do we cope with that kind of change and how do we cope with the underlying effects of climate change on the planet? And I think the answer is we really have to redesign how we think and how we do, how we think and how we do. And with great deference to Mogaki, I would say that technology is a great enabler, OK? But technology does not spell out a pathway for people to make decisions in a very, very uncertain environment, whether you're in a utility or you're in a government agency or you're trying to manage fish populations or you're trying to manage food in a very, very chaotic environment which is to come. So we have a great panel here today and it's my pleasure to ask the panelists to come up on the stage. And I will introduce them as they come. So we have before us essentially Mr. Mohan from, he's a professor at the Department of Civil Engineering at the Institute, Indian Institute of Technology. So he's a guy who's a modeler and is dealing with things that Ogaki was talking about, with climate and being one of a number of factors. Dragon Savage, someone I've known for a long time, comes from Exeter University and has just recently taken over. He's taking over the Netherlands. He's taking over KWR. But he's one of the finest people I know in the world when you think about water systems, drainage systems, wastewater collection systems, and networks, and how you manage in such these are huge investments, 80% of investments. How do you manage when you really don't know what's going to happen next? And if you don't believe what's going to happen next, look at your TV for the last couple of weeks and see what's happening through climate-induced huge hurricanes, which have profoundly influenced three different continents in the world. Third, Marian Savile, who is a health-related microbiologist and a very dear friend, also a good friend of Ogaki Sensei from New Zealand. And she has been involved really with Joan in the microbiology group and is working now with policy in New Zealand related to some of the problems we're talking about. Adrian Sim, please join the panel. Adrian works for an organization called the Water Stewardship Alliance, which is essentially an effort to get industry corralled and some standards set so that we can say that as a world, we're really working towards a common goal of sustainability at the industrial level. Finally, we've got, I think it's finally, Joseph Vessie, who comes from a great company, Xylem, and has worked all aspects of water all the way through the water cycle and for a couple of different companies. So it has been around the block on the issue of, what are we producing? Who are we producing it for? And how do we anticipate what is to come? Now I'm going to get away from this mic and come over and do a little, I think a little pacing, maybe. So guys and gals, how are we today? Yeah, we're OK? OK, so we've got a very limited time and we've talked a little bit about questions which I would post to you. And they come from a combination of sort of two questions. One, how would, I would say, given Ogaki Sensei's speech, his prescription is that we should embrace technology and use technology to adapt to things that are coming. The other side of the coin is, how do I know, how do I know either which technologies to adopt or how do I know what I'm trying to plan for? And when you take a real complex situation, say like salmon recovery in the San Francisco Bay area, we don't understand the problem of the salmon and why their mortality is high. We don't understand the interaction of the Delta rivers and the withdrawal of waters for water supply down into Southern California. We don't understand the broad scale effect of climate change on the ultimate survival of the salmon in that region. It may be that they're going to become extinct anyway. So it's a little bit hard then to say, well, all we have to do is pick out a technology because actually we don't understand the problem and we've got to fly the plane while we're figuring it out. So that gives rise to a couple of ideas and that are being widely used. And those ideas are adaptive management, scenario planning. But if you look at the reality at any university in the world today, they're still teaching students as though we are living in a certain world with constrained objectives and our issue is really to optimize as opposed to be resilient, as opposed to being adaptive, and as opposed to being able to embrace broad scale change. So with that, let's start with one of Sensei's questions, which is we've got structural changes going on, which he would describe as population urbanization and the resource implications of that. And you included flooding and drought and then unpredictable changes, which would be earthquakes and the like. Just focusing on the so-called structural changes, then my question for you, just hanging on a second. Get my names. Mohan, you work at Indian Institute of Technology. You're a modeler. And you are a citizen of a country in India that adds 300 million people every 17 years to its population. And if I ask you the question, are you worried about climate change mostly? Are you worried about population mostly, about urbanization mostly? What would you say if you looked at it from your point of view? Yeah, this is a very difficult question, but I'll try to answer this one. See, actually, our population growth modeling is well-established, so it is not that kind of a problem. At least, uncertainty is not that much. But the more importantly is climate change and its impact in our country. Because recently, we found that two states, which are having the especially urbanized area, the rainfall, which has around 150 years record, that has come again back. So people are now trying to tell that it's more on the climate change. And that too under the monsoon climatic condition. So the more important problem is monsoon prediction, how we can do that, or what will be the change in the climate change, and also urban population. The third problem in our thing is we are making the urban areas worse than the earlier one. Now, because a lot of buildings have come, especially the water is not going down. So that makes a kind of a flash flood rather than the original flood what it is. So that makes almost cities like one week there is no mobility. So we had to live in that particular. So we are now trying to look out on trying to change the stormwater system completely to take care of the future system. That's one way. So what you're saying, if I could sum it up, is that it's hard to say which is more important, but really that you're viewing a host of problems, right? And consequences, and trying to cope with that, right? Now let's shift from a country that has over a billion people to a place in the we call New Zealand, right? Which has, what's the population of New Zealand? Oh, we're 4.6 million. So we are the extreme end. So you could say that in a way, Marion has simple problems compared to Mohan. However, you know, small places can have plenty big problems and they have less capacity if you like to absorb the impact of bad things happening. So what's your take on this idea that we're in this rapidly changing environment, we're not exactly sure what to do. I know you're working a lot on trying to clean up rivers, you know, in the context of, you know, a changing agricultural settings, right? Urbanization, population growth and pretty significant climate change in certain parts of New Zealand. Well, how do you do it? Oh, that's a good question. We are still trying to figure that out and we're growing. Now one of the first things I want to say is we mustn't, we look at what you guys are doing all around the world and that's what we have to do more. And we've got to be selective because we cannot do every solution available and we don't have the money and the resources. And equally well, we cannot bury ourselves into a dead end so that we can't change that. So we have to look, we have to learn and we have to listen and we have to talk. And that means talk to you guys, talk to the international community but then talk among ourselves. So we mustn't form silos. We've got to get over this and be talking to one another and that is crucial. And then we will incorporate this new technology that Professor Ogaki is talking about because I think technology is important but I think it's going to allow us to grow exponentially but to do that, we've got to talk. Yeah, okay and I just add a thought here. I think, and sensei, when you have your final words, I mean I think technology doesn't necessarily lead. I think technology often follows from trying to work your way through pretty complex problems but sometimes it leads, sometimes it follows. So speaking of technology leading and following for you, Joseph, are you equal by Joe? Oh yeah, Joe. Okay, so you work for one of the big companies in the world, right? And you're making water technology, I know from a lot of experience, you know, in all parts of the world and all parts of the water cycle, right? And you have to make a profit. You know, different from sometimes people that utilities and universities which have big problems but they don't have to make a profit every quarter. So you've got to look out at the changing landscape and figure out what to do either in terms of having the right product available in terms of engineering products that are more flexible and have a longer life and to be a better partner with the utilities ultimately that you're serving. So what's your take on all this? Yeah, thanks. So we serve water utility customers all over the world and we listen most importantly, we listen and we learn from our customers. And I'd say, you know, they're dealing with uncertainty as the professor lined out in the keynote. And there's really, I think two things that we try to do. Number one is how can we build more adaptive products, more adaptive design the products? And I'll give you an example. If you're in the pumping industry, most pump companies or pump people talk about curves, a pump curve, we have a head and flow. And for a duty point, you typically have one pump that achieves that duty point. But in the world of uncertainty, you don't know the flows, you don't know the head you might need. And so we've developed a new product that instead of having pump curves, it's a pump area or a pump grid. So essentially one pump can now do what 10 pumps could do before. So you now need to less predict and understand the environment you're gonna be because you can't do it anyway. And so how can one pump do the work of 10 pumps? That's one area we're working on, that's number one. Number two I'd say is customers under such uncertainty at times, that slows decision making and slows asset renewals and asset replacement. So what if we could deploy sensors, technology, use machine learning to have customers use the assets that are already in place? And we've done this with combined sewer overflows. A traditional yesterday's thought would be to put massive storage, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in for a combined sewer overflow. But what if you could deploy sensors and essentially use the conveyance system that you have today, that's what we're doing with customers in and around the world with saving hundreds of millions of dollars by doing that. And it helps them in this changing environment that they're living in today. Okay so you, and just a follow up question and as a company and you've watched this changing landscape so you've adopted some of your existing products, right? And have you added then new products that would for example on the sensing side that would allow you to create options that didn't exist before from your company? Exactly, so Xylem is a leading digital player in water. The last several transactions and internal innovations that we've driven have all been on the digital sensing, software, machine learning. We are in a whole new world. We're competing with companies we never thought would even enter the water space, right? These are IT companies that are entering the water space. That's who we see as potential competitors and partners for that matter as well. So it's changing dynamic is a changing space. It's an exciting time to be in water. That's fascinating. And you know that if we just carry on from what you're talking about, one of them I think the most difficult task of the whole water space is the fact that we, we don't use water where we sit and we don't dispose of it where we sit. In fact, we've got networks, right? And those networks get built over centuries and they're very difficult to build in the beginning. Most people don't even understand, I'm saying this from experience in my own utility, don't even fully understand the network that was built 50 years ago. And then you've got this idea that you've got, you know, if you think about Europe, you're moving from countries which probably aren't increasing in population whatsoever. However, you know, the whole drainage regime is dramatically changing, right? And then you've got places with no networks that need networks and all that. So Dragon is really one of the experts in the world in this field. What's your take on what is, I think, if you put together the idea that things are really changing, it's part of its population, part of its climate change, and that it's wildly different in different parts of the world, right? So what, I mean, and you're an expert, right? You're a world expert in this field. So how do you kind of think about these problems and what do you think are some of the kind of key points that you would say are essential for societies, countries, communities, educational institutions, industries, you know, to be thinking about? Thank you, Paul. You're absolutely right. We're talking about infrastructure that lasted for centuries in some countries now and will have to last for hundreds of years. That's the point. We can't easily replace that or renew it. So we have to plan 100 years ahead. And when you think about it, the only thing I can say about demand prediction 100 years ahead is whatever you predict it will be wrong. So we have to work with those kind of systems. And that's where the flexibility we were talking about happens. That's where this talking to other people happens. I'm talking about federation of scientists, of utilities that are working on the similar problem. An example of this kind of adaptive planning is that we will have to probably invest more at the beginning to build that flexibility so that we can adapt to the future that will happen, which we don't know about. Remember the famous known unknowns and unknown unknowns and we are talking about unknown unknowns. Exactly, yeah. I would just add that within the new organization that I'm working with, I'm really happy because we do two things. One is really well and that's scenario planning. And the other thing is talking to other people, having a network of experts working with us, both utilities and research institution, Professor Ogaki leads one of those institutions working in this federation of research organizations trying to address these problems. Okay, so I wanna come back to you in just a minute but now we're basically thinking how people are responding to uncertainty, right? And so here's the case of essentially that the municipal sector and large scale infrastructure. Now you, Adrian, work with an organization that's trying to work with industries to do the right thing and to set some standards by which you can certify companies as being good guys, right? Or good girls, as you like. And yet what's good and where the bar should be must be just incredible within your association. And when you think about green certification and that kind of thing, certifying to what? And what's good enough and are there times as an example in Seattle, the city of Seattle, experienced a complete meltdown of a giant wastewater treatment plan because they were trying to be so good that essentially the urban area vacuumed up all the stormwater, okay? So and when the stormwater exceedances were too big, it completely blew up the plant, right? So one idea is we could have had a bypass and it goes into the ocean and it's sorted out in about two weeks. But industries have the same problem. How do you cope? So what's your take on this? Well, thanks, Paul. So first of all, the perspective that I'm bringing here is less one of the utility or the infrastructure provided by one of the border user. So our members are, not just from industry, it's important to stress from all sectors, but the approach we're taking is to use a voluntary standard and certification system to drive innovation and best practice. And it's a single standard for whether it's a utility in Seattle, whether it's a noodle factory in India, whether it's a chicken farm in Australia, it's a single standard. So it's not prescriptive, but what it does is it provides a safe place for companies to sit down with others and have those conversations like we're talking about. We're ultimately at slightly different level and perhaps with slightly different audiences all talking about the same thing, which leads me to my perspective is I'm always struck. I'm not a water engineer or a specialist in anything to do with water, but I attend an awful lot of conferences about water. And I'm always struck by how little we actually talk about H2O. What we talk about are relationships, first and foremost, and what flows from them. And so the technologies are great and very important. I can completely concur with Professor Ogaki, but I would add the softer technologies are equally important. Technology isn't just pieces of kit. Technology is also soft stuff that helps to engage, start conversations and build trust. So unlike a regulator, for example, you have the ability then to be a bit of a facilitator for this conversation, right? Which is needed as everybody has said, right? And by its nature, if you watch it over five or 10 years, you'll see how it is adaptive and people shift gears. So one of the things I'd like to sort of add then to what's been said, and I turned principally to you, Dragan, on this. It strikes me having worked in IWA for 12 years and worked with hundreds of universities. You have engineering students, right? Who are being trained in a kind of, a kind of an archaic view of what's ahead. I mean, it's like going fast through, looking at a rear view mirror. You know, the notion of adaptive management, right? And adaptive management systems and scenario planning and dealing with uncertainty is not the centerpiece of engineering curriculum in most universities. Would you agree? Well, I agree with you that we still use some outdated methods in the academia, but we are also moving in that direction because there is quite a lot of departments now that teach systems analysis from a much softer perspective. We include humans in it, which engineers are not well known for. So, you know, there are movements. Okay, so just if there are movements, how do we accelerate that trend in general? Because there's certainly, you know, I work in China and I can tell you, you don't see it and don't see it much in Asia and also in lots of parts of the world. So how would you change the ball game here? Well, if you're talking about water engineering, IWA is a place where you have young water professionals, when you have research kind of area and you also have the industry here. And these are all the ingredients that we need. I was talking about smart systems recently and we can't have smart systems if we don't raise a new generation of water leaders who also understand ICT, softer issues and water above all. Okay, so I'm hoping that all of you here today and all of you sitting in the audience are listening to this because about half of you probably are the next generation and we really need you to take that advice seriously because a number of us will be out of the picture and you've got to sort of take that over and think more courageously, think more audaciously. Yes, Mary. One more comment to say. I think we've got to look beyond our water industry to get the new ideas and we can see this. We need to look at other industries, other disciplines, not just water. And I think this IWA Congress is a great place to start. Okay, so that's the beginning of the wrap up. So just last thoughts here from each of you, okay? Just to... Diversity of workplace ideas and data will help us get there. Mm-hmm. Hey, Jen. Fully agree with... Marion, is it? Marion, yeah. On the broadening of the conversation, it's absolutely critical. I would encourage... If you asked me to be provocative, Paul, I would encourage IWA to stop talking about the water sector because water is everywhere and everything. Okay, and Mohen, you'll be... I just want to add what we require in the current setup and the future here. Some skilled development. So I think the skilled development is really very bad in the developing countries. So unless we train the people, otherwise, you know, it is the same old people, but without much kind of a training. I think the skilled development is one of the area where if I want to manage the system, the water system, whether it's a stormwater training or in the water treatment or wastewater treatment, the skilled development is one of the very important... And when you talk about skills, Bob, and I presume you're talking about universities and... University, as well as... Or continuing education. As far as polytechnic diploma level, we need some training because now nobody goes for that kind of a training. Sure. It is more on the higher education. People are concentrating, but we need people at the mechanic level. Okay, so continuing education. Yeah. Greg, for the panel, you have your last thought. Well, the organization that I work for has a motto of research to practice. And that's one of the things we need to actually kind of do what we preach. And that's both building the educational system but also applying it in practice. And sometimes we are like two words, two worlds, sorry. One is doing the research, the other one is doing it practically. We need to work together into disciplinary. Okay. So, Sensei, you have the last word here. Thank you. You're welcome. It's on. Yeah, just talk. Yeah. I've already discussed about education or capacity building. I didn't touch about it in my talk so much, but I think that this decision making is not done by AI. We should do by ourselves. And for this purpose that we have to grow the young generation who understand the multi-disciplines. For example, that is we have to grow the mechanical engineer who understand the economics or civil engineer who understand the microbiology. Like that one. That is the most important thing to invest to the young generations. And Sensei, just one question because you can speak to a really important country. Do you feel like that is happening in Japan today or it's too yet to happen? Unfortunately, somebody, many, not yet, that is that. I think more. More is required. Emphasize that one in the university or utilities or industries. Okay, so Robert, you're here. So can I adjourn the session? Okay, good. Well, listen, I'd like to, first of all, thank Professor Ogaki. He's in Japan, you use people's name with a son or Sensei. Sensei means someone you greatly admire. World class. So we'd really like to first thank you, Professor Ogaki Sensei, from all of us, okay? Thank you very much. Yeah. Then, Joan, to thank you for introducing this panel. And Joan recently won the Stockholm Prize. So, and she's really been an inspiration for a lot of us. And then finally, can we thank each and every one of you for your time and your thought? I know that you're really busy and each and every one of you, for thinking about this problem, I think it's the most, I actually think it's the most compelling problem that at least our professional area is coping with, right? Because we don't know what we don't know for sure. And even what we don't know that we know is gonna be a whole new ballgame in terms of the lack of really predictability in the future, you know, certain predictability. So thank you, everyone, and just thank the panelists and thank yourselves, okay? Thank you.