What do we do?
Projects
We work together on projects in the water sector, in which we experiment as an open community with available and new data and advanced techniques. Think of AI, machine learning, data lakes, remote sensing and digital twins. In this way, we increase our joint strength and develop innovations that can be applied throughout the sector. This may involve water management (flooding, drought, water quality), water and logistics (ports, inland shipping, nautical safety), spatial planning of the North Sea (e.g. around wind farms) or other challenges we face. The program is updated annually by the partners.
Community events
We regularly organise meetings and webinars (LINK AGENDA) in which partners share knowledge and gather input for their ongoing projects. This ensures that everyone can participate and that innovations fit in well with other developments in the water sector. This open attitude makes our community unique. Not only public parties but also companies and knowledge institutions work together with an open vision within DigiShape, which leads to a powerful exchange of ideas and expertise that helps the entire sector move forward.
Capacity building
Together, we are building the capacity of the water sector in the field of data science by sharing knowledge through in-house courses and training activities. DigiShape partners open a selection of training courses for other partners to prevent duplication. Community events, both live and online, are also crucial for capacity building, sharing technical topics and new developments.
More impact together
Thanks to the strength of the partnership, we as a water sector are able to exert influence where individual organisations are unable to do so. Consider, for example, the Water and Climate work area, which would never have seen the light of day without the collaboration within DigiShape. DigiShape is also a valued discussion partner in the top sectors (water, ICT, logistics) and other relevant bodies, with which we succeed in giving data science in the water sector a face.
"If everyone develops open source, the sum of all the tools will be many times greater than if we all started developing something ourselves."
For whom?
DigiShape is intended for:
- Professionals responsible for the management and development of our water system;
- Data scientists in the water sector, who share and strengthen their knowledge by working together;
- Experts from other sectors, who understand new techniques such as data science, machine learning or artificial intelligence and find great use cases in the water sector.
Anyone who feels responsible for our coast, the rivers, the sea and their functions (transport, agriculture, drinking water, etc) and wants to contribute to smart solutions is welcome to join.
Why innovate?
The effects of climate change are increasing rapidly. The water sector does not have the solutions available to tackle all of these in time. So we have to innovate. At the same time, developments in the field of digitization and data innovations are going so fast worldwide that we will lose the Dutch competitive position if we do not make use of them.
Governments, the business community and knowledge institutions are therefore already working hard to integrate data from different sources into their business processes in a smarter way. But we also see that this data is not yet sufficiently shared with each other. To keep up with developments, it is essential that we connect ongoing data science initiatives. In addition, we can identify, test and implement new techniques much faster if we do it together.
"At DigiShape, parties find each other who would otherwise not easily meet each other. That raises the general level of knowledge in the water sector."
DigiShape results
- Innovative solutions to the problems we are struggling with in the water sector.
- New techniques are becoming available for the entire water sector;
- Data-driven decision-making;
- Parties share data with each other;
- Data sources will become available for the water sector;
- Confidence in data science is growing;
- More and more employees know how to work with new data science techniques or make optimal use of them;