L-R: Kevin Murray, Deputy Chairman, Cork Chamber; Ruth Buckley, Cork City Council; Kevin Fitzgibbon, WSSIC, Nimbus

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The Water Systems and Services Innovation Centre (WSSIC) is a joint venture between Cork City Council, Cork County Council and the Nimbus Centre at Cork Institute of Technology.  The WSSIC is on track to create an expert resource in modernizing Ireland’s water infrastructure by taking advantage of Nimbus’ technological expertise and leveraging both Councils’ experience in Water Resource operation.

Continuing the momentum of the successful first phase, the WSSIC Centre Manager will link closely with high potential businesses in the region to actively innovate and solve problems within the water sector. The WSSIC team evaluate new solutions in water and waste water management at the earliest possible stage and develop end-to-end solutions that show good evidence of high potential return on investment. The economic potential of this will be enormous, translating into profit for local business, providing employment and opportunity, while in tandem driving a clean environment agenda.

The WSSIC is an excellent opportunity to showcase the innovation and leadership that Cork provides in terms of water management. These problems can be effectively addressed with the synergy of vast expertise and experience from the councils and industry in conjunction with the advanced technological capabilities of Nimbus.

Sean Sherlock TD, who was present at the launch, said “This innovation hub will help provide better water services for the people of Ireland. In doing so, the innovation hub will create new, innovative, industry opportunities and jobs, while promoting Ireland as the sector leader on the European stage.”

Tim Lucey, Cork City Manager, Dr. Brendan Murphy, President of CIT, Sean Sherlock TD, Minister of State for Reserach & Innovation, and Martin Riordan, Cork County Manager pictured at the launch of phase two of the Water Systems and Services Innovation Centre (WSSIC) at the Nimbus Centre at Cork Institute of Technology.
Picture: Pascal Ungerer

Dr Brendan Murphy, President of Cork Institute of Technology, was one of the main speakers at the launch. He said “This exciting initiative is an example of CIT’s innovation ecosystem working for Ireland. Our goal is to take this into the Nation’s communities and create a new kind of innovation that impacts on our daily lives and inspires creativity.”

The WSSIC will harness state-of-the-art technology, innovations and leadership in water quality monitoring, leakage reporting & repair, remote monitoring and much more.  New ideas and technology developed in WSSIC can have global impact, positively influencing the major political, environmental and humanitarian issues caused by water supply and quality. The resulting advances will be rolled out across County Cork, with a view to deploying to all city and county councils in Ireland.  Alongside more efficient water services and monitoring processes, the WSSIC will be used as a catalyst for the creation of new Irish-based enterprise and jobs.

The WSSIC will establish and actively use 4-6 high impact test-beds for assessment and trials, located at appropriate City and County sites and promote Cork as an internationally recognised cluster of water systems and services organisations. This will translate innovation excellence into sustainable regional and national economic development and job creation.

The Nimbus Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for embedded systems research, development and demonstration. The Centre’s sixty five researchers and engineers also focus on hardware, systems integration and networking in application fields such as smart cities, energy, security, transport and user interfaces. Nimbus has extensive involvement with Irish SMEs, which will also be exploited for technological advances.

This innovation initiative is led by Kevin Fitzgibbon, Water Co-ordinator, Nimbus Centre, CIT.

Kevin.Fitzgibbon@cit.ie 021 433 5095

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The WSSIC plans to harness state-of-the-art technology in water quality monitoring, leakage reporting and repair, remote monitoring and much more. The resulting innovations will be rolled out across Cork city and county with a view to deploying to all city and county councils in Ireland. With this, the WSSIC will seek to become internationally recognised as a hub for innovation in water-based systems and technologies. Alongside more efficient water services and monitoring processes, the WSSIC will be used as a catalyst for the creation of Irish-based enterprise and jobs.

Cllr Tony Fitzgerald, Deputy Lord Mayor will represented City Council at the launch. “The creation of this Innovation Hub will help to provide better water services for the people of Cork and in doing so will create new industry opportunities and jobs” he says.

Martin Riordan, Cork County Manager adds “We need to look at new and more efficient ways of managing all the water and waste-water sites across the whole county. The key challenge will be to ensure that that all the sites can be managed efficiently through a centralised control system.”

Dr Brendan Murphy, President of Cork Institute of Technology, was one of the main speakers at the launch. He says: “This exciting new initiative is an example of CIT’s innovation ecosystem working for Ireland. Our goal is to take this into the communities nationally and create the kind of innovation that impacts on our daily lives.”

The Nimbus Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for embedded electronic systems research, development and demonstration. The Centre’s sixty-five researchers and engineers also focus on hardware, systems integration and networking in application fields such as energy, security and user interfaces.

This initiative is led by Dr Kieran Delaney, Lead Innovator with the Nimbus Centre. Contact details: Dr Kieran Delaney, Kieran.delaney@cit.ie, 021 433 5567

Contact Details for other project members:

Researcher: Dr Ross Gillanders, ross.gillanders@cit.ie, 021 433 5184

Cork City Council, Senior Engineer: Pat Casey, pat_casey@corkcity.ie

Cork County Council, Chair of Steering Group: James Fogarty, james.fogarty@corkcoco.ie

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