Denis Maia

Mr. Maia is a Computer Engineer from PUC‑Rio, with executive education from INSEAD. He taught Business Planning at PUC‑Rio and Instituto Gênesis. As founder and CEO of Choice Technologies, he led global expansion, serving utilities such as Equatorial, Enel, EPM, Saudi Electricity, and Tata Power. He received two international awards for digital transformation and data analytics. In 2023, he served as Vice President of Corporate Development at Bemobi. In late 2024, he became Chief Customer and Technology Officer at Sabesp (SBS).

Zonetta E. English

Zonetta has over 33 years of water and wastewater experience. Zonetta is the Strategic Initiatives & Project Director for Louisville MSD. In her capacity she serves as the Operations Liaison for the largest capital improvement project at the largest wastewater treatment facility in Kentucky. She also leads the implementation of Artificial Intelligence at the regional wastewater facilities within Louisville Metro area. In addition, she is the project lead for the Warehouse Operations Improvement project that is utilising business process modeling to develop processes and technology for managing capital spare parts for projects totally over $400M in total. Zonetta holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She has obtained a master’s in business administration with concentration in finance/management and has an Associate DBIA certification.

David Hughes-Owen

David has worked in the water industry for almost 30 years. He joined Busselton Water as Chief Executive Officer in September 2023 after three years as General Manager Service Delivery at Taswater overseeing statewide operations and maintenance of water and wastewater treatment. David spent 25 years at Water Corporation Western Australia leading state-wide infrastructure growth and renewal planning and investment programs and undertook a broad range of business, planning, operational and maintenance activities across a large geographical area. His experience covers industry operations, including; rural and metropolitan water source, treatment and networks, sewerage network and treatment, and urban and rural drainage. 

Joana Araújo

Joana Araújo is the Operations Management Centre Coordinator at Águas e Energia do Porto (AEdP), the public utility responsible for water and energy services in Porto, Portugal, and since April 2025 has also served as Service Continuity Manager. She coordinates 24/7 operational management, incident response, and interdepartmental and external coordination, ensuring service continuity and operational resilience. With over 19 years of experience in public utility operations and communication, Joana works at the intersection of operations, crisis management, and business continuity, contributing to organisational resilience, service reliability, and continuous improvement in essential public services.

Arash Farajian

Arash Farajian is the Manager of the Field Innovation Team at Toronto Water, a team he established from the ground up to lead the identification, piloting, and scaling of emerging technologies that improve the performance, resilience, and sustainability of linear water infrastructure. He initiated and led Toronto Water’s digital twin journey—one of the largest and most comprehensive digital twin implementations in North America—supporting advanced asset management, operational decision-making, and cross-divisional integration.

With over 15 years of experience across operations, planning, analytics, and project delivery, Arash brings a strong commercial perspective from his earlier work in equity markets prior to joining the City of Toronto. In addition to his role at Toronto Water, he is actively involved in City of Toronto–wide artificial intelligence initiatives, contributing to the responsible and strategic adoption of AI across municipal services. He brings a pragmatic, operator-focused approach that bridges utility needs, research, and industry partnerships.

Greg Norby

Greg Norby is the Deputy General Manager for Engineering and Technical Services at Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (Central San), a regional clean water agency serving more than 500,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area. He provides executive leadership over capital planning and delivery, asset management, engineering support to operations, and long-term infrastructure and modernisation strategy for a complex wastewater treatment and conveyance system.

Greg is leading Central San’s efforts to advance data-driven decision-making, applied artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the development of BIM-centric digital twins that support operations, maintenance, and lifecycle asset management. A central focus of his work is maximising lifecycle value from major capital programs by integrating digital twin capabilities directly into program delivery—from planning and design through construction, commissioning, and long-term asset handover.

His approach emphasises moving digital twins beyond visualisation toward practical, utility-owned capabilities that improve reliability, enable predictive maintenance, inform capital investment decisions, and strengthen alignment between engineering, operations, and maintenance. He has also been closely involved in shaping the organisational structures, governance models, and workforce roles needed to sustainably adopt and scale digital twin and analytics capabilities across the utility.

Reginal Joseph

Reginal Joseph, MS, MBA, serves as the Assistant Commissioner for Digital Transformation at the Bureau of Wastewater Treatment (BWT) within the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City. In his role, Reginal spearheads several large-scale modernisation initiatives across BWT’s infrastructure, including the upgrade of 14 wastewater treatment plants, 96 pumping stations, and over 500 regulators with state-of-the-art SCADA systems. Additionally, he oversees the implementation of advanced telemetry systems for climate monitoring, ensuring that BWT remains at the forefront of technological innovation and environmental sustainability.

Wouter Huisman

Wouter Huisman is Program Manager for the SOFIA program (Smart Operations from Intelligent Assets) at Brabant Water, a utility serving 1.2 million customers in the southern Netherlands with a 19,000 kilometre distribution network. The SOFIA program aims to implement a Digital Twin of the distribution network, comprising several projects such as deploying sensors throughout the network, introducing smart water meters, implementing the Xylem Vue data platform with tools for the control room, and fostering a digital way of working.

Wouter holds a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Twente and has over 10 years of experience in drinking water and underground infrastructure. He began his career as a project management trainee, later participating in the Young Expert Program Water as a drinking water specialist in Benin, West Africa. Wouter has also served as a Senior Advisor Asset Management, overseeing tactical and strategic maintenance and replacement plans for Brabant Water’s distribution network. Since 2021, he has been leading the SOFIA program, driving the implementation of the Digital Twin and the digital transformation at Brabant Water.

Renee Story

Renee Story is the Service Quality and Improvement Lead with Logan Water of Logan City Council. She designed the business process architecture to deliver services prudently and efficiently, and is leading process improvement projects to bring the architecture to life. Renee has a Bachelor of Business and is currently studying a Master of Laws in Enterprise Governance.

Mario Castro-Gama

Mario Castro-Gama is a Civil Engineer, with a MSc in Hydroinformatics from the IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education and a PhD in optimisation of large water supply systems from TU Delft. His expertise lies between Water Science engineering and Hydroinformatics. Since 2021, Mario is senior specialist for underground infrastructure at Vitens N.V, the largest drinking water company in the Netherlands. In his capacity, he leads and contributes to various innovation initiatives within the realm of drinking water distribution and applied informatics. Some of his notable projects include Critical Infrastructure Investment Planning 2050, BOS model (decision support system), Digital Twins implementation, application of data assimilation in the water industry, EUR per cube project, energy audits, and data quality control. Member among others of Digital Water Technologies Expert Group (EG) of Water Europe, the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research (VVSOR) and the International Association of Hydraulic Research (IAHR).

In addition, Mario participates on international missions for knowledge exchange and capacity development with Vitens Evides International (VEI)and has contributed to the continuation of the semi-annual Data Science knowledge exchange (Data Science KU) for employees of companies in the sector in the Netherlands between 2023 and 2024. His professional expertise extends also to river engineering and water management for large basins, encompassing reservoir operation, hydropower, and water allocation across diverse regions such as Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and China. He has contributed to the field, having authored over 40 papers, and presented at international events.