Q: Where did your passion for water originate?

I was born in a water scarce city, Constantine, The Numid city, Algeria 48 years ago. I have seen my grand-mother and my mother filling small tanks of water and bringing them up to the 11th floor of our building and the lift was not working by then. Securing enough water for the next two or three days was quite a challenge for all of us.

It's time for me to give back to those who are still in such a situation. Even though Droople is a startup, we strongly believe that every individual, every stakeholder in a society must demonstrate tangible commitments to make a change.

Q: How did you create the idea for Droople, and how has the business developed since then?

Unlike other start-ups, Droople was not born in a garage, but in a kitchen. In the middle of the night, I woke up to the hungry crying of my baby boy and got up to fill his bottle with water and milk powder but was too tired to measure the water with accuracy. That’s when I had the business idea of an intelligent water management system that could measure the water volume.

Inspired by the data mining of Google, the product performance of Apple and the notion of the Swiss precision of a drop, I founded a business and called it ‘Droople’.

Today, Droople has 15 employees (who call themselves ‘Drooplets’) from 10 different nationalities and has happy customers all over Europe, North America, and Asia.

In 2021, the year of commercialization, Droople was already able to deploy more than 1000 units and to save more than 8 tons of CO2eq. This is like the annual emissions of five passenger cars in Switzerland!

Q. It takes a team to build something special; tell us about the Droople team

We all have a bond with water, it could be of any nature, but we all share this common factor with the “drooplets”. The more diverse the company culture is, the bigger its positive impact.

Droople benefits from the experience of successful entrepreneurs in hardware, SaaS business as well as experts in the water industry or Big Data & AI top universities.

All ‘Drooplets’ show compassion and are a committed blend of track-record talents with diverse profiles (age, gender, culture) and complementary skills, covering business, technical and sustainability areas. We also have a mantra representing a triangle which is like our consensus protocol (aka blockchain) which combines “Need for Speed”, “Align or Die” and “Good enough”. We come back to this mantra when we must do arbitrage.

Q: Tell us about an impactful project you have recently completed

Well one, after a rigorous selection process of independent and duly selected experts, Droople has recently obtained a Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label. We are proud to join the community of 1000 solutions that have met the criteria of economic profitability, technological feasibility, and positive socio-environmental impact. We stand beside Solar Impulse Foundation’s aim to encourage decision makers to adopt more ambitious environmental targets and energy policies.

Research-wise, it is to go without mentioning our team has also developed stochastic prediction modeling of hot water use behavior in residential buildings with up to 23% of energy savings. Very interesting to see how this progresses for larger facilities.

Q: What is your 2025 vision for the world of water?

As a dad of 4, I care a lot about the future of younger generations. If my generation is not sharing the responsibility to reach a net zero economy for the future, the nexts will for sure. The world needs to get water smart when it comes to the global climate crisis. Individuals, companies, institutions. We must educate the multiple aspects of carbon emissions and how we all can contribute to CO2 emission reduction. Every 1000 liters of water consumed generates between 7-15 kg of carbon emissions. One simple step to reducing just water waste has a major influence in fighting climate change. My vision for 2025 is that schools are educating water conservation and how with small behavioral changes, we can save 10 liters per day per student because every drop counts and because small rivers make big ones. ‘The world of water’ starts with our children caring about water and already committed to making a better use of our shared source of life

Q: Are you able to tell us about any projects in the pipeline?

1) We recently announced that we will equip our solution with 600+ units and help vouch sustainability certifications for Lombard Odier Group’s newly consolidated headquarters in Geneva. Planned for 2024, 2’600 workstations, a modular auditorium with capacity for up to 800 people, a staff restaurant, gym and several break rooms. This sustainability building aims to achieve three different certifications: SNBS (Standard Nachhaltiges Bauen Schweiz), Minergie-P and BREEAM®.

2) We are also going to equip a large chain of grocery stores in the US but it is still confidential, so keep fingers crossed!!!