Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
Abilash Haridass: Water scarcity in India is a looming issue. WEGoT aqua was innovated with an aim to reduce the water consumption by bringing about a much need behavioral change in the way people use water. In April 2015, 4 engineers (Vijay, Mohideen, Abilash, Sundeep) with absolutely different yet complimentary skill sets founded WEGoT. In a country like India where almost all big cities are water starved, there is still no accountability for a consumer on his water usage. Growing up in Chennai and being witness to acute water shortages, the founders wanted to contribute and help the city solve its water shortage. Having understood the promise of IoT, the group ventured to develop a sensor-based IoT device and a software platform that provided an end-to-end water management solution.
Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by WEGoT Utility Solutions
Abilash Haridass: WEGoT is an IoT startup and we have developed an end-to-end water management solution which manages the entire water infrastructure in a property by acquiring granular consumption data that was previously unavailable through high precision sensors that track flow, pressure and quality of water and then applying it to the various water related applications in the property.
The platform is primarily used to audit every building's consumption and help each resident track their own consumption. It will also detect leakages and remotely shut them off in real time from the mobile phone / web application. Further, the Facility Management team is able to stay on top of water related challenges like Tanker Lorry Management, Borewell Management, STP & WTP efficiency by bringing all the data onto the same platform and operational exceptions being notified in real time.
Great Companies: What makes WEGoT Utility Solutions different from traditional water management systems?
Abilash Haridass:
We are the only product that tracks water at all stages of the lifecycle (source to consumption) and have a solution for each specific problem point in the water cycle.
We have innovated on the business model to increase adoption. We give the product for free and charge a nominal monthly subscription.
We have the smallest sensors available, thereby making it the easiest sensor to install. The entire solution is a simple plug and play model, which will help us scale faster.
Our Wireless LoRa sensors come with remote set up feature that makes it flexible
Our product is built on IoT first platform, unlike other water meters that use IoT technology only for some functionalities
Ultrasonic water meters are flexible for mounting in all directions, are dirt resistant and come with negligible pressure loss
Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?
Abilash Haridass: The mindset of people to pay for water did not exist because the cost of water is cheap. But as the water crisis became more pronounced and people realized the importance of having and actionable way to save water that makes everyone accountable for the water they consume through technology, there has been a shift in the mindset and far greater acceptance.
Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for WEGoT Utility Solutions?
Abilash Haridass: WEGoT has currently implemented water management solution across 30k+ homes, 40 million+ sq.ft of Commercial space, having saved 3 billion+ liters of water already. We plan to expand our operations across PAN India to another 1 million+ homes, more than 5,000 commercial and industrial facilities by 2024 – targeting to save over 10-billion litres of water in the next three to five years.
Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Abilash Haridass: Be passionate about the problem you are solving
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