The Power of Citizens: Bringing People Together to Solve Problems at The NWL Innovation Festival

Angela MacOscar, head of innovation at Northumbrian Water, highlights past successes from innovation festivals, and how this year’s event will be bigger and better than ever.

Mark Coates, Senior International Director of Infrastructure Policy Advancement, Bentley Systems

To make innovation happen, sparks of inspiration and ingenuity need to fly.

Some people may be sceptical that one event can yield dozens of inspiring ideas to solve a range of problems. However, Northumbrian Water has proven that its innovation festivals do just that.

By bringing together people from a variety of sectors since 2017, the events have produced ideas that can save lives, as well as money.

The water company’s week-long festival is made up of “sprints” and “hacks.” Sprints are focused, time-constrained sessions where teams come together to brainstorm new ideas and create solutions to problems. Data hacks are like sprints, but participants analyse data to come up with insights and innovative solutions.

At the 2017 Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) Innovation Festival, members recognised the need to digitally map underground pipes and cables. Then, at the 2018 event, a dedicated sprint came up with a pilot version of a map that caught the attention of the United Kingdom government, which led to the government officially setting up the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR).

When utility companies know where other firms’ underground pipes and cables are, they can avoid accidentally striking them. Field workers will be able to let asset owners know if they find an issue without needing to know to whom to send the information too. 

There are an estimated 60,000 accidental strikes per year in the U.K., which cost around GBP 2.4 billion to fix and result in lost productivity. These incidents can be fatal and cause lengthy delays to a project. Health and safety figures show there were at least 37 cable injuries in the U.K. because of accidental strikes last year.

While utilities have always shared maps, it was an incredibly slow and labour-intensive process to get hold of them, and there was a lack of consistency in how they were created. Northumbrian Water identified that legal issues around data sharing between utilities and government agencies were the biggest hurdles that prevented underground mapping from taking off. By exploring the barriers to data sharing, NWG and Ordnance Survey could write a data sharing agreement to overcome the problem.

Northumbrian Water got the right people together for days of discussions at its innovation festival and found a way forward.

The Geospatial Commission secured GBP 3.9 million of funding from the government to extend North East underground map pilot for a further two years. After extensive work in collaboration with Ordnance Survey and the Geospatial Commission, Northumbrian Water helped develop what would become NUAR.

The U.K. government then adopted the system and started rolling it out to three pilot areas—the North East England, Wales, and London—in the spring of this year. The government will begin to roll out NUAR to the rest of the country from this September, meaning that, for the first time, all the data for the U.K.’s underground pipes and cables will be in one place on a colour-coded map. However, for security reasons, utilities will only be able to see a very small portion of the map at any one time.

Northumbrian Water estimates that underground mapping will save its business alone around GBP 1 million a year—and billions of pounds for companies across the U.K. over the coming years. The register is predicted to deliver at least GBP 350 million per year of economic growth through increased efficiency, as it reduces asset strikes and reduced disruptions for citizens and businesses.

More than 300 organisations have now signed up to work with the NUAR by entering into a data exploration agreement (DEA). These organisations include energy, water, and telecommunication companies; local authorities; and other public sector bodies that own buried assets. DEAs are one of the first steps in the process that allow NUAR’s data experts to map an asset owner’s data to the NUAR data model and provide feedback. As employees can record inaccuracies in the register when they find them, utilities can review any flagged-up inaccuracies and evaluate whether the register needs updating.

Another inspiring initiative to spring from an innovation festival is “NoDig.”

Northumbrian Water and technology firm Origin Tech came up with the idea at the 2021 festival to tackle the problems caused by leaking pipes.

Water leaks are common. Data from the regulator Ofwat shows 51 litres of water per person per day were leaked in England and Wales in the financial year 2020-2021. Normally an average of GBP 750 can be spent on excavation or digging to fix a leaking pipe.

But with NoDig, a mixture of water, gel and minerals is injected into the pipe. The solution then finds the hole, goes through it, and seals the pipe from outside.

These “self-healing” pipes can save water companies the costly price of digging up roads and pavement, enabling repairs to happen more quickly.

Northumbrian Water, which has 25,545 kilometers of water mains and serves around 2.7 million people, is currently using the system on smaller pipes. However, they are working on developing it so that it can be employed on pipes with wider dimensions.

Given the breakthroughs made during previous innovation festivals, there is much expectation that this year’s event will be bigger and better than ever.

It is hoped that the event, being held between 10 and 13 July at Newcastle Racecourse, will deliver many more game-changing ideas.

Among the 35 activities at the festival, there will be 34 sprints and three data hacks. Delegates will come from all over the world, with around 2,000 people at the racecourse and at least another 1,000 online. This number is a far cry from the first festival in 2017, when only 1,000 people from 140 organisations came to six sprints and one hack. While that first festival was smaller, 34 innovative ideas and solutions came from that festival.

Following last year’s theme of “untapped potential,” this year’s event will explore the power of people and what communities can achieve when they work together. The theme of “citizens” is based on a book of the same name by Jon Alexander, which highlights how the world is going to enter the age of the citizen.

Unleashing the power of everyone equips society to face the 21st century challenges of economic insecurity, climate crisis, public health threats, and polarisation. Because when institutions treat people as creative, empowered creatures rather than consumers, it encourages people to help make change happen.

Alexander, who wrote Citizens after the pandemic, said, “If we give ourselves and each other the chance, we can fix this.” As it has proven in the past, the NWG Innovation Festival is all about bringing people together to fix things.