Pablo Peón studied law and specialized in data protection and cybersecurity in Germany, topics on which he offers consulting services with his own company. Although he was born in Asturias, he has spent more than half his life in Lanzarote, where he moved to fully enjoy one of his greatest passions, surfing.
Now he is also founder and CEO of the Lanzarote start-up AquantIAalab, an intelligent platform for water efficiency that won second prize in the latest Sustainable Talent competition of the Chamber of Commerce and Líneas Romero. The technological and development part of the start-up is handled by his friend and partner, the Gran Canaria engineer Alejandro Santana.
Both are now immersed in patenting the idea and starting with the first pilot project. “We have tested the system in the laboratory and within a maximum of six weeks we will move it to an agricultural farm in Lanzarote for the first pilot with which we can gather all the data on the ground”.
"You will know how much water you have, how much you are consuming, or if there is a cut or break"
Despite its strong technological content, Peón explains the system so that anyone can understand how it works: “It is an installation the size of an electrical box and inside we are going to use a system that we will connect to the pipes, behind the water meter. From there we connect our system to your phone with a mobile app to get all the data.
“What we have seen in the test database is that this system that we are going to start implementing can provide farmers with information on their phones about whether they have water or not, if there are outages, and that they can also from their phones execute opening and closing of valves,” explains Peón.
“You will know how much volume of water you have and how much you are consuming, it will also notify you if the water volume drops or if there is a break or a leak. We foresee water savings of between 35 and 40%”.
In addition, Aquantialab is working to integrate data collection on meteorology, soil moisture, and salinization.
Agricultural, business, and domestic irrigation
Aquantialab, which has three divisions, an agricultural one, another industrial one, and a third domestic one, is seeking financing and is in talks with the Cabildo, which “has shown interest in the technology,” and with the private sector in Lanzarote and other parts of the country.
“We are also talking with the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands (ITC), for the more industrial part, which is very interested and we will possibly enter one of its programs to continue with the project, develop it and put it up for sale”.
Aquantialab wants to develop first in the Canary Islands, but its vocation is global. “The plan is to start in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and then expand to Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Then we would like to make the leap to Africa and the Mediterranean arc”.
The system may also be applied to business and domestic gardens. “Imagine having your water consumption on your phone, or knowing if at a given moment you have a break and that it can be easily detected”.
Artificial Intelligence and "the perfect plant"
“The integration of Artificial Intelligence will make the system learn from your own use and recommend to you when to water, tell you when there is sufficient humidity or the most opportune time to water based on radiation”.”
“In agriculture, we also want to capture data on what I call ‘the perfect plant on each farm according to farmers’. Thus, we can record the data it has on water consumption to apply that consumption recipe to all plants”.
Aquantialab is open to generating more pilot projects that it would do at a lower than commercial price. “I want to be super honest, we don't have production yet so what I'm telling the farmers who have asked me is that if they want one, they can advance us part of the money to make and install it”.
If everything goes according to plan, Peón announces that Aquantialab is going to need to hire quite a few people, “especially IT professionals and installers”.