Protected: Ramzi Bouzerda: Building Droople’s smart water technology

Droople started with a mission to make water smarter. What personal experience or problem led you to build the company, and how has that original vision evolved? Rami Bouzerda: I grew up in Algeria, where water scarcity isn't a headline - it's daily life. That shaped a conviction I never lost: water is not a commodity, it's a right, and we treat it far too carelessly. I trained as a computer engineer at EPFL in Switzerland, sold my first startup during the dot-com era, and spent years driving digital transformation for banks. But the mission that kept pulling at me was more personal - reinventing how the world understands and manages water. That's why I founded Droople. We started by making water consumption measurable. The vision has since grown into something bigger: a full water intelligence platform - that turns every water point into live data on usage, quality and safety. From “measuring water” to making water visible, accountable, and smart. That's the journey. Canadian commercial buildings, hospitals, schools and other large facilities are under increasing pressure to improve efficiency and sustainability. Where do you see Droople's technology creating the greatest value for Canadian organizations? Rami Bouzerda: The greatest value is in what nobody currently sees. Every commercial building, hospital and school runs on an invisible water network - faucets, boilers, filters, meters - that no one measures in real time. You can't manage what you can't see. Droople's IoT water monitoring puts each of those assets online with live flow, temperature, pressure and quality data. For Canadian organizations, that unlocks three things at once: efficiency (cutting invisible water waste and the energy tied to heating it), risk prevention (early detection of leaks and water-quality threats like Legionella in hospital and long-term-care hot-water systems), and compliance (automatic, documented proof instead of manual spot checks). In a cold climate with aging infrastructure and ambitious net-zero targets, smart water management for commercial buildings isn't a nice-to-have - it's a direct lever on cost, safety and sustainability. [caption id="attachment_6350" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Droople Water Intelligence Platform[/caption] Droople combines IoT, data and AI to monitor water systems. What is the biggest problem you're solving for businesses today, and what measurable impact are customers seeing? Rami Bouzerda: The biggest problem is blindness. Water is the last unmeasured utility in most buildings — managed by guesswork and monthly readings that miss everything in between. Our sensor-to-cloud platform changes that with real-time water monitoring and analytics at the point of use. The impact is concrete and already at scale. Across 150+ clients in 20+ countries and more than 5,000 installations under management , Droople has monitored nearly 977,000 m³ of water and helped save the equivalent of 60+ Olympic swimming pools of potable water. Our AI has flagged conditions that let customers avoid 2,400+ unplanned interventions and prevented an estimated 463 tons of CO₂-equivalent emissions . Beyond the numbers, it reframes the economics: when you measure water instead of estimating it, a one-time hardware sale becomes recurring insight, and waste that was invisible for years finally becomes actionable. Visibility is the asset. You describe your vision as building the “Internet of Water.” What does that actually mean, and what could water infrastructure look like five to ten years from now if it becomes truly connected? Rami Bouzerda: The Internet of Water means every water asset - from a household tap to a hospital's boiler room — online, sensing, and speaking a common data language. Today water is an invisible commodity. Connected, it becomes visible, measurable and accountable. Five to ten years out, connected water infrastructure will diagnose its own leaks before they cause damage, predict equipment failure, and guarantee water quality and safety right at the tap. Droople aims to release on an snap-on tap sensor that will deliver water-quality analytics like hardness, potability socre including heavy metal or PFAS-risk indicator directly to the user and recommend appropriate water treatment solutions. Scale that across millions of points and water stops being something we consume blindly and starts being something we manage intelligently - like electricity or the internet itself. That's the shift: from reacting to waste and risk, to preventing both by design. [caption id="attachment_6306" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Droople Assets[/caption] As Droople expands globally, what opportunity do you see in the Canadian market, and which Canadian industries or organizations would you most like to work with? Rami Bouzerda: Canada is a priority market for us - we're at market-entry stage , actively in discussions with OEM partners and real-estate developers to bring Droople's water intelligence to Canadian buildings. It's a natural fit: aging building infrastructure, a cold climate that raises the stakes on hot-water systems and Legionella risk, a vast facility footprint, and genuinely ambitious climate and water-stewardship goals. That's exactly where water intelligence delivers fast, measurable returns. The industries I'm most excited about: healthcare and long-term care, where water safety is mission-critical; commercial real estate, REITs and facility management, where efficiency and ESG reporting converge; hospitality; and education. But our entry strategy is partnership-led - Droople is a platform, and platforms scale through ecosystems. So the OEMs, building-technology players and property developers who want to embed smart water management into what they already deliver are exactly the partners I want to build with in Canada. [caption id="attachment_6307" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Photo Courtesy: Droople[/caption] For a company operating in climate tech and water technology, how do you balance sustainability impact with building a scalable and profitable business? Rami Bouzerda: I don't see it as a balancing act - I see it as the same equation. In water, sustainability is the ROI. Every liter saved, every leak caught, every failure prevented has a dollar value, so environmental impact and economics point in the same direction. That's a rare and powerful alignment. We built the business model to reflect it. Our Hardware-as-a-Service approach turns one-time installations into recurring revenue and continuous value for the customer - the more we help them save, the longer they stay. As a certified B Corp, that discipline is written into how we operate. Scalability then comes from the platform and its partner ecosystem rather than from headcount. So the honest answer is: we don't trade profit for purpose. In climate tech done right, they compound. [caption id="attachment_6310" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Ramzi Bouzerda, Founder, CEO - Droople[/caption] Want to see the impact on your own building? Simulate a real-world case with Droople's ROI simulator: roi-simulator.droople.com

Protected: Ramzi Bouzerda: Building Droople’s smart water technology

Ramzi Bouzerda discusses how Droople uses smart technology and real-time data to improve water management and reduce waste.

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