2015 Water/Energy Nexus Hackathon Showcases Potential Energy and Water Applications

The 2015 Water/Energy Nexus Hackathon, an event sponsored by California American Water and The Water Innovation Project, was held on Aug. 15-16 at the General Assembly offices in San Francisco. The hackathon collaborated water and energy experts with the technology community to develop applications and methods that could simultaneously help current water and energy issues.

After working on their programs for 36 hours, 15 teams presented their product on Sunday to a panel of judges that included California American Water’s Vice President of Operations Rich Svindland, California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval and Sally Gutierrez from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development along with individuals from Verizon and the Presidio School in San Francisco.

“Water Conservation for CAW,” a consultant from Houston, was awarded Best Overall for creating an extensive tool in SAP that would compare household hourly, daily and monthly use against a number of benchmarks.

Other winners included the Best out of the Box Award winner “California Drought,” who used multiple data sets to identify vulnerable portions of the populations. “Water Game” won the Audience’s Choice Award for creating an app with high quality graphics and offered tax rebates to the highest water savers. The competition prizes include $750-$1000 and computer software.

“When it comes to looking at the drought or water-energy issues, customers and utilities both face novel challenges,” said Rich Svindland, Vice President of Operations for California American Water. “By bringing in new perspectives of people with a starter or a tech background to this hackathon, they can provide a simple, novel idea that could lead to breakthrough concepts that can help with the water or energy issues we face today.”

California American Water, a subsidiary of American Water (NYSE: AWK), provides high quality and reliable water and/or wastewater service to approximately 600,000 people.

Founded in 1886, American Water (NYSE: AWK) is the largest and most geographically diversified publicly traded U.S. water and wastewater utility company. With headquarters in Voorhees, N.J., the company employs 6,800 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to an estimated 15 million people in 47 states and Ontario, Canada. More information can be found at www.amwater.com.

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California American WaterEvan JacobsOffice: 916-568-4252Mobile: [e-mail]