Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
A Nevada-based nonprofit is partnering with state government to scale water technology companies and their innovations across the state.
WaterStart was founded to drive water innovation while supporting economic development goals. The organization understands the challenges facing water system managers — from large drinking water utilities to resort properties, according to Rebecca Shanahan, the group’s executive director.
“We became intimately aware of the challenges of treating and delivering a reliable source of water, so we really grew into an organization that would drive new technologies from scope … through to adoption,” Shanahan said. “And that’s the big win for us — when a utility would adopt a technology — because we’re really helping to commercialize that technology.”
The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) is investing $1.8 million into WaterStart, drawing from the American Rescue Plan, the Nevada Knowledge Fund and a 2023 grant from the Governor’s Finance Office under the American Rescue Plan Act, according to a news release.
However, GOED and WaterStart actually go back more than a decade, when GOED helped the Desert Research Institute (DRI) to establish WaterStart, said Karsten Heise, GOED’s senior director of strategic programs and innovation.
“We are now trying to work closer again with WaterStart, and leveraging their expertise so we can identify technology solutions nationally, even globally, and (bring) that to Nevada,” said Heise, who is responsible for turning technology inventions into marketable opportunities.
In 2024, WaterStart collaborated with research institute SRI to offer recommendations on a “waterwise economy,” as Heise phrased it. Now, WaterStart will help strengthen water-technology innovation in GOED and Nevada’s overall involvement with the National Science Foundation’s Futures Engine in the Southwest, led by Arizona State University.
“The engines are trying to enter into more partnerships and create new test beds for new technologies,” Heise said.
WaterStart and GOED will issue a series of Requests for Proposals over the next few years, he said. Each proposal is seeking technologies to address a specific issue, on which GOED can work with partners where those challenges have been articulated, and test and validate those technologies.
The pair’s current proposal involves three priority areas, Shanahan said: alternatives to pressure-driven membranes for treating things with implications for the water sector; leak detection and containment in commercial buildings; and next-generation, high-efficiency alternatives to cooling.
Nevada is a unique market for water innovation, because it has had to define what it means to conserve every bit of water in unique ways, Shanahan said.
“Our utility partners have seen value in working with WaterStart because of the knowledge-sharing opportunities we provide with their peers and other utilities across the globe, not just in Southern Nevada or Nevada as a whole,” Shanahan said. “They’re very interested in following what the state of Nevada is going to do, because we are globally recognized for being first adopters.”
She pointed to an example in which WaterStart helped fund a project to evaluate an atmospheric water generator unit at a cooling tower at the Bellagio, which would capture vapor from the tower and recycle it so Formula One could offset the water it uses to wash the racetrack.
“So people are really trying to think outside of the box,” Shanahan said.
Another example is WAVR, a startup and spin-out from UNLV that harvests water from the atmosphere, per Heise. GOED supported WAVR through the Nevada Knowledge Fund, he said, pairing an entrepreneur with a researcher in an effort to get the technology out into the marketplace.
As a very young company, WAVR needed to prove that its technology worked not just in a lab environment, Heise said, but also in the real world. So WaterStart partnered with the NSF Engine, UNLV and the company, and put together a project to validate the technology.
As part of another grant from the NSF Engine, WAVR was able to develop its technology further, Heise said, and GOED was ultimately able to invest in the company alongside local seed fund Desert Forge Ventures.
“So it has this economic impact to our region, to the state, but it can take those solutions globally,” Heise said. “So that company can scale over time, really become a big player and employ a lot of Nevadans — while at the same time addressing water challenges we face in the Southwest.”
This is not just about innovation at universities, Heise said, but really using them to address key existential challenges that Nevada faces. Organizations like WaterStart help in public-private partnerships to address those challenges, he said.
WaterStart’s pilot program is about accelerating technology readiness levels, Shanahan said. GOED has put forward funds to try new technologies, she added, because they could incentivize new companies to move to the state, or existing companies to utilize them.
“And in doing so, you’re helping to scale that technology company’s solution,” Shanahan said. “That’s been our business model from Day One, really.”