Transcript 0:00 Talk to me. Information, news, and entertainment on demand. WS radio.com. 0:11 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, the voice of IoT in our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:25 My next guest focuses on the development of intelligent water grids, which have the potential to revolutionize the interaction between hydraulic systems and man-made infrastructure. 0:38 His long-term goal is to build the Internet of Water, an intelligent cyber physical system that connects natural water bodies with the physical infrastructure using advanced sensing technologies and data-driven models on top of a novel communications backbone. 0:55 Please welcome what we have named pioneer Branko Kerkez, Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. Branko, welcome to the show. Hi, Peggy. 1:10 It's great to talk to you. It's wonderful to have you on the show, and congratulations. It's amazing the things that you are actually doing today. 1:19 And I'm kind of curious about there's so many challenges when we talk about, we talk about agriculture today, but there are a lot of urban water systems in the US that are struggling and have a lot of challenges. 1:32 I think we talk about flooding, water quality, water scarcity. I mean, even on a global basis, we have that. But can you talk a little bit about some of those and some of the things that you're working on? Sure. 1:45 Um, so basically, when we think about water systems, in particular urban water systems, the first thing that comes to people's mind is oftentimes drinking water. 1:52 Um, and the one I like to focus on, um, just because it doesn't get nearly as much attention are stormwater and sewer systems, sort of like this invisible infrastructure under the ground. 2:02 And, uh, you just need to read the news to see what kind of, uh, problems we're having these days. So you have parts of the country that are persistently flooding. 2:10 Uh, flooding is probably the leading cause of natural disaster deaths in the United States. And then you have parts of the country that are just essentially drying up. They don't, um, they don't have enough water. 2:19 And so we have, we have this challenge, if you look at a city like Los Angeles, for example, during the summer, just one of those storms that hits them is sufficient to provide the city with just a vast amount of water. 2:29 But, um, we've designed these water systems so effectively to convey rain water away from buildings and roads that it basically flushes all that rainwater out to the Pacific in, like, an hour or two. 2:39 So, um, lots of, lots of places around the country are having issues with their water infrastructure. 2:45 So the idea behind this, that what I think is so fascinating that you've done is actually you're redesigning and controlling the floods by using sensors and valves to reconfigure or redesign urban watersheds, I think in real time, is really kind of your focus through all of this. 3:02 And that's kind of when we interviewed you and when we really looked at what made you a pioneer is just the innovative nature that you're looking to do all of this. 3:12 Yeah, that's exactly what we're focusing on, is this idea that you have watersheds, which are this mix of infrastructure and natural systems, which traditionally they just do what they do, right? 3:22 We try to engineer them as best as we can to, um, provide some s- some level of service, but ultimately, they're sort of just subject to nature. 3:29 Even though the events that they're subjected to are highly dynamic, like rainstorms and large rain events, um, there's really-- they can't change, they can't adapt. It's really difficult to do that. 3:38 So the idea really was to say, okay, what would constitute a dynamic watershed, one that can change? So step one is always to take measurements and to take that information to provide insights. 3:48 And then step two is to say, instead of just acting upon that information, can we somehow automate that, right? 3:53 So, um, that's where the idea of valves and controllers and pumps that turn on and off comes in, um, to create sort of a watershed that responds in real time to changing conditions. 4:02 Do you f- is the challenge getting people to understand this? Every time I think about changing mindsets, there's always hurdles of getting people to buy in to changing traditional ways of doing things. 4:15 Are those the same hurdles you find with trying to get people to think differently about the way we are doing something that's a safe water system alternative to what cities are used to and, you know, either public-private partnerships or however you might go about convincing people these are different ways of doing things? 4:37 Sure. Uh, uh, my personal opinion after doing this for a little while now is that really the biggest barrier is not technology. 4:44 Um, as you're well aware of, technology is at the point where it's matured to where we can just use it kind of ubiquitously, right? It's really sort of changing people's perception of what these automated systems can do. 4:53 And I can look back even just a few years ago when we're sort of like floating this idea around and just wasn't, wasn't resonating with people. 5:00 And I think in large part, there was this idea that, number one, it sounds too complicated. Why would you, you know, kind of like, don't fix what's not broken kind of mentality. Like, we already have pipes that work. 5:09 Why would you complicate them with all technology? 5:12 Um, but I think behind that kind of reasoning are a number of other factors that might relate to trust and to risk aversion that sort of permeates a lot of, uh, um, the water industry and just sort of decision-making at the public level. 5:23 But, but the good news is it's, it's going well now, right? 5:26 These partnerships that we've been able to form over the years, um, have, have worked really well to the point where cities are starting to consider these technologies as, uh, um, not necessarily alternative s-existing solutions, but t-technologies that can improve how we use existing infrastructure. 5:41 Are we getting that because people are starting to understand the Internet of things? They're starting to believe in it? Is that's what's made finally... 5:49 I mean, are there examples that you can share with us that we finally say we're moving forward in a positive and an embraceful way of this?Sure. I, I think to some extent what you're saying absolutely makes sense, right? 6:02 Is this notion of automation and, um, embedded technologies is, is everywhere now. People are familiar with thermostats in their house that change their, you know, temperature based on occupancy. 6:12 So more and more of these ideas are, are coming through, and I think that's for sure one of the elements that, that sort of helps propel the idea. 6:19 Uh, another thing just from personal experience that I've learned is that when I first started working on this, I was sort of excited just about the technologies, right? 6:25 I was like, "I like sensors, I like controllers, I like machine learning and all these different things." But that's not really what sold the idea. 6:32 What, what sort of brought it, what sort of bubbled it up was this focus on water. 6:36 So rather than going sort of top-down technology, here comes the technology, let's solve the problem, is to sort of say, "Let's really understand the problem and talk about how we map these technologies to the actual metrics that decision-makers care about." 6:47 And as soon as you start talking about water systems, um, in that way, it really is, it doesn't matter what solution brings you to that goal. Um, in this case, it just happens to be technology. 6:57 So when you think about that, is this something that you have to have municipalities think about it, or do you have to get the right skill set from students, universities to, to think about the challenges? 7:09 'Cause it seems to me there's gotta be the right skill set to understand the challenges of water. Municipalities might say, "Yeah, we've gotta do it," but they're always the ones saying, crying poor. 7:20 [laughs] They have no money to make all these changes, right? So who's the innovative thinker behind all of this? Right. And that's definitely part of the appeal, right? 7:29 This idea that you can somehow, hopefully down the road, stretch your dollar further by automating your infrastructure, right? Instead of building bigger and more, you can actually use what you have more effectively. 7:38 And I think that resonates with decision-makers who are always operating on, on unlimited budgets. I doubt there's any city out there in the country that has an unlimited budget, right? 7:46 Some have more than others, but in general, we always talk about resource constraints. So that, that's step number one is sort of saying, "Okay, well, if that's possible, who's gonna build it?" 7:54 And, and if you look at it, um, we are at the point where we need to sort of start training a, a new generation of students who have the training background and the domain expertise in water systems that can supplement that with additional training in fields like computer science and electrical engineering and data science. 8:10 And those kind of students are s-slowly starting to bubble up through a variety of programs throughout the country that are sort of promoting this. 8:17 Um, so it's, it's an exciting time, but it definitely needs sort of this like dual training in order to make very sort of application-aware, uh, technologies. 8:28 Are these students that are bubbling up because they're environmentally concerned or because they're, they're excited about the innovation? Is it a combination or, or, or they wanna be socially involved? 8:41 What, what, what kind of students now get excited about this? Sure. There, there's, there's both, right? 8:48 There's the students who just started in environmental engineering, let's say, and really realize that they need to add new tools and skill sets to their, to their sort of general toolbox i-in order to be able to tackle some of these problems, these emerging problems with automation. 9:03 But then what I'm seeing more and more these days, and these are students that, uh, end up working in our lab, are students who come from like a computer science and electrical engineering background, and they sort of see the, the impact that these technologies can make on, uh, sort of non-conventional applications. 9:17 I mean, I, I think you rarely hear about water when it comes to automation, but I think they see the impact. They see the environmental benefits of these technologies, they see the societal benefits, and they sort of... 9:27 They, they, they get a context for how to apply these tools that they learn in, in class. So our lab has a mix of students that is really interesting. 9:35 It's, it's multiple departments, multiple groups, and it really is, I think, this, this social impact component of this that resonates well with them. 'Cause they can still hack around. 9:43 They can code, they can build sensors, they can build hardware, but they can apply it to something that the next day can, you know, they can see has an impact in, in the, in the actual community they live in. 9:52 Is there a certain set of research right now that you've been really proud of, or is it that you're inspiring this next generation along with you? 10:00 I mean, you're pretty young yourself to feel like you're contributing to this new skill set and continuing to get them to wanna be innovative as, uh, along with them. For sure. We're, we're working on that, right? 10:12 We have, we have programs now at the graduate and starting out at the undergraduate level. 10:16 We're trying to provide students with this, with this sort of breadth of, of, um, of tools and domain knowledge that they need to tackle this. 10:23 So from a formal perspective in our department, in the civil and environmental engineering department, we have a systems group whose sort of calling was along these lines. 10:31 So they're saying that the, the challenges that are emerging right now just cannot be tackled at a, at a single element level, let alone at a single, uh, disciplinary level. 10:40 So we need to train students with the ability to, to approach those things. And, uh, that's definitely happening in our department. 10:46 It's happening and it's, it's starting to happen in a bunch of other places, um, across the country. So it's, it's a really exciting time and, and it's really exciting to see that students are getting into it. 10:55 Like interest is only increasing. 10:57 Well, it sounds like what you guys are doing at the University of Michigan is exciting, and I wanna thank you for spending time with us and congratulate you again for being a pioneer, 'cause it's exciting to see that we're inspiring, you know, continued students and doing a whole lot of other things. 11:12 So thank you so much for spending time with me today. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me and, uh, including me in this. It's really humbling to be part of this group. Thank you. All right. Thank you. 11:21 All right, listeners, we are out of time for this segment, but you know what? If you wanna learn more about what, uh, Branko Kerkez is doing, you could certainly go up to connectedworld.com. 11:30 There's a wonderful article that we've written about him and all of his efforts, as well as all of the other nine pioneers. So go up to connectedworld.com. 11:38 You could certainly listen to this show and any others, uh, at thepeggySmedleyShow.com, or certainly tweet at us at connectedworldw, uh, connectedWmag or Peggy_Smedley. 11:49 As always, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, The Voice of IoT. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. We'll be right back after this commercial break. 11:58 [outro music]Signal to noise: an electronic term with new relevance on the internet. 12:05 Connected World Media cuts through the noise of data overload and finds you the signal of important information, information that will keep you current and aware of context in the Internet of Things. 12:16 Peggy Smedley shares her insights on The Peggy Smedley Show and in Connected World magazine, all online at connectedworld.com. Stay current and competitive at connectedworld.com. 12:30 [jingle] Thank you for listening to WS Radio. 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