Three weeks after 14,000 delegates from the world’s water-technology industry converged on Singapore for a week of deal-making, Milwaukee will host its fourth annual Water Summit on Monday in an ongoing effort to carve its own niche in the same field – a field that is green, global and growing.
Some 200 local attendees are expected to hear a daylong roster of national industry experts as well as the three main candidates in November’s gubernatorial race, who also are invited to take turns talking about the economics of water.
Southeastern Wisconsin and the southeastern Asia city-state of Singapore may have next to nothing else in common, but they are moving – at very different speeds – toward very similar job-creation goals. Among them:
• Attracting the engineering and manufacturing operations of water-related companies.
• Encouraging universities to develop cutting-edge technologies to clean, conserve and re-use water.
• Grooming homegrown water-tech companies into international players.