awAIre AI Startup of the Year CxO Interviews: William Gilmartin, CRO & Co-Founder, Sewer AI
In the lead-up to the presentation of the awAIre AI Startup of the Year Award at awAIre, we’re taking some time to get to know the leaders of each of the 5 Finalists. Today we are talking with William Gilmartin, CRO & Co-Founder, Sewer AI :
Hi William – Tell us a bit about yourself – what led you to get involved in the AI market?
After a few years of developing environmentally beneficial projects such as, wetland mitigation, LEED Platinum geothermal well installations, and soil remediation, I found my passion in wastewater. The US has 6 billion feet of sewer pipe and half of it is at the end of its useful life. This is a $1.65 Trillion Dollar liability for our nation’s critical infrastructure. To add insult to injury, our nation’s failing infrastructure pollutes the environment with 860 Bln gallons of raw sewage every year. If we want to maintain a prosperous society with healthy quality of life, we need to solve the wastewater problem quickly and inexpensively.
In 2011 I developed a business focused on cleaning and inspecting the nation’s largest and oldest sewer pipelines. I performed work throughout the country for hundreds of cities. This was fun and very exciting; however, it was only solving problems for 5% of our nation’s wastewater infrastructure. To truly make a positive impact on wastewater we needed to develop solutions focused on solving systemic wastewater problems at scale.
So, in 2019 I partnered with Matthew Rosenthal (CEO & Co-Founder at SewerAI), and we started SewerAI – where it is our mission to find cracks in the system, predict risks to society, and prescribe solutions for a more safe and sustainable future.
What is the company uniquely bringing to the AI market?
SewerAI’s Inspection Management Platform – Pioneer™ – is a web-based platform where customers upload, stream, edit and share all their inspection data. Pioneer is equipped with AutoCode™ – which is the most advanced computer vision technology in the world that can automatically recognize defects in sewer pipes in accordance with industry standards. With Pioneer and AutoCode, customers can reduce their costs, accelerate productivity, and increase the accuracy of their inspection data.
What other factors make the company compelling?
Systemic problems exist in all infrastructure verticals: water, wastewater, bridges, roadways, highways, dams, electrical transmission, natural gas, etc.
Developing cutting edge technology in service to infrastructure is a challenge that requires deep industry knowledge and experience. We believe the team we are assembling, technology we are building, and the lessons we are learning at SewerAI position the company to become a leader in a new category of business – Automated Infrastructure Diagnostics
How has the company been involved in the development of context & AI?
SewerAI’s technology provides its customers context to their underground infrastructure assets at a speed and accuracy never before possible. This is only made possible with cloud computing and AI.
SewerAI has built one of the largest repositories of sewer inspection data ever created. This library grows daily and is used to train our AI. The technology we’ve developed to create the data library for the AI can be bolted onto other verticals within infrastructure to solve similar problems.
How do you see the Context & AI market developing over the next few years?
We believe AI, in the next few years, will make the most impact by supporting human decision making and enhancing quality of life. AI provides data, predictions, and prescriptions that will drive better decision making. It will also serve to improve work flows, that will allow humans to direct the time and attention toward value creation. Any AI project that works in service of these two principals will experience tremendous success.
Thanks William, and best of luck with the Award !
Register FREE to see William pitch-off with the other finalised for the Award at AwAIre on June 22nd.
