Oliver Harrison in UKTI trade visit to Brazil

Back in April, our field service team leader Oliver Harrison took part in a trade visit to Brazil organised by UK Trade & Investment. We were delighted to be included in the UKTI SMART Cities Initiative and to share thoughts and ideas by working collaboratively with key stakeholders.

Oliver spent a week in the country and has written the following feature outlining his experience.

“During my visit to Brazil, I was lucky enough to visit two cities in particular – Curitiba and Sao Paulo. Curitiba is a SMART city located in the region of Panama and is probably the most developed city in Brazil. Sao Paulo state is the largest state in Brazil with a population of 44 million.

“Obviously I was interested to learn that, as here in the UK, there are numerous water companies in operation. The water company covering Panama is Sanepar and Sao Paulo’s is called Sabesp – the Brazilian government is the major shareholder of every Brazilian water company.

“Panama has 232 sewage works, over one million sewerage connections and provides drinking water for ten million people and I had some interesting conversations with fellow delegates about infiltration and pollution issues within the industry and was able to offer some insight into how we work with water companies to prevent such problems using smart network monitoring

“As well as being a water company, Sabesp is also a pioneer of technology in the water industry in Brazil which was particularly interesting from a monitoring industry perspective.

“When I arrived in Curitiba I learnt that there are a number of river quality projects in progress and was able to meet with a number of parties to discuss how Detectronic could potentially support such projects using our extensive knowledge and track record of preventing pollutions.

“It’s fascinating to look at and learn more about the infrastructures of other countries and it’s something Detectronic has done since its launch because it’s all about the global picture for us when it comes to best practice in our industry. Now I’m back in the UK, it was great seeing the summer Olympics being hosted by Brazil!”

Oliver Harrison is pictured, centre, with the UKTI SMART Cities delegation in Brazil