Hello Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you as part of this key study on fresh water.
I’m representing Cteau today, a non-profit organization and one of the only technology accelerators specializing in water. I’d like to share my experience as an entrepreneur and co-founder of Clean Nature—a clean tech startup—to shed light on the technological innovation landscape.
I’ve always been passionate about protecting water, and my personal and professional paths have given me the opportunity to look at water issues from many angles, both in science and research and in the industrial, municipal and private sectors. As a Canadian born in Colombia, when I first arrived, I was amazed by Canada’s many fresh water resources and, at the same time, frightened by the false sense of security around its accessibility and sustainability. Since water is our most precious natural resource, Canada must develop an effective strategy to protect it. That means supporting the water technology sector so it can deliver innovative solutions.
So today I’m going to talk about three things in particular: the need to accelerate the development of technological solutions, the severe shortage of support for promising and innovative ideas, and the need to support the technology acceleration and transfer ecosystem.
Firstly, we need to accelerate the development of technological solutions, because freshwater protection issues are constantly changing, requiring innovative solutions. A few examples are contamination, pollution, climate change and resource use. Traditional methods will likely no longer be enough to address these issues. It’s therefore crucial that we bolster technological development and innovation in Canada.
With 20% of the world’s freshwater resources, Canada must be a leader in developing clean technologies for water. This requires support for innovative solutions, emerging companies and technology accelerators so that these solutions can move from idea to market and contribute to protecting water and growing the economy.
Secondly, there is a severe shortage of support for promising and innovative ideas. Although there are programs to support technological development, there’s still a shortage of appropriate financial support for companies in early development stages. Every new technology must go through ideation, prototyping and validation before launching.
As an example, I’m going to tell you about Clean Nature, a start-up I founded with two colleagues in the water sector. It’s based around an innovative new technology that got a lot of attention from the market, the media and Innovation Canada. Despite that, four years later, we still don’t have the financial and technological backing we need to fully commit to launching our idea. I have no doubt that many start-ups are facing the same barriers.
While it’s easier for medium and large companies to access financial resources, there aren’t enough technology acceleration resources for Canada to become a leader in the water sector and use the best technologies to protect this resource. The risk is that Canada will lose out on promising ideas and technologies.
Thirdly, we need to support the technology acceleration and transfer ecosystem, because innovative companies need both financial resources and technological support. To guarantee their success, access to technology accelerators like Cteau and business accelerators like AquaAction is crucial. They’re vital to developing clean technologies in Canada.
There’s a desperate need. For example, over the past four years, Cteau saw a 400% growth in both revenue and number of projects involving technical assistance, validation and solution scaling.
Sadly, despite all this growth, lack of public funding is limiting our ability to fully meet the needs of innovative companies in a market that is becoming increasingly aware of how important water is.