INNOVATION January-February 2012

They put together a business plan and then entered it in the New Ventures BC competition where it won $160,000 in prize money— essentially the seed funds to start the company in July 2008. “That allowed us to hire our first engineer,” says Zoshi. The company now has a staff of 25, mostly engineers, scientists or technicians. As well, the company has put together a board of directors. One board member is entrepreneur and founder of Extreme CCTV Inc, Jack Gin PEng, who first met Sparrow at an SFU MBA class where he had been an annual guest speaker. Years later, he met him again at an angel investor forum. Sparrow introduced himself and told Gin of the desalination method he was developing. “I encouraged him,” Gin recalls, thinking it was a very interesting concept. Later, he received a call from Sparrow asking him to join the board. By this time, Gin was just selling his own company and was at the end of the journey that Sparrow and Zoshi were just starting as technology entrepreneurs. “I remember thinking that this invention would be very important to the world,” he says. “And, for that reason alone, really, for humanitarian reasons, I should help.” Gin says his support has been that of acting as a sounding board and advisor for the group. “This is a technology product where—like for many great things that have been invented in BC—it has to be marketed first outside of BC.”

Opportunities from Industry Changes The company’s success has also been tipped by circumstance. Sparrow notes that many countries today are starting to limit what resource companies can do with the wastewater drawn from underground mining. Industrial wastewater may include that water produced from oil and gas operations, mine tailings, or desalination plant brine. As such, it no longer becomes a disposal issue but one of reclamation and utilizing the commodities— fresh water and salt—created in the process. In inland areas, it opens up new opportunities for irrigation. “Initially, our focus was all about sea water and the need for fresh water,” says Sparrow, “But industry has a lot of waste salt water and globally regulations are tightening around what industry can do with it, and as a result they are being forced to adopt desalination methods. Some of the new technology is needed now by industry in order to meet those regulations. It is a fascinating time to be working in such an industry.” Finding new solutions to turning underground brackish salt water or sea water into usable water for irrigation or other uses continues to provide “a lot of room for innovation,” says Sparrow. “We are really just getting started.” v

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