Ecole Polytechnique (EP) has hosted the Second LOTUS Project Meeting on 19-21 June 2019, near Paris, France with the participation of both, European and Indian teams.

The goal of the meeting was to analyse preliminary findings and to finalise the setting and locations of the LOTUS use cases, in which sensors and ICT solutions developed within the scope of the project will be deployed. The intention was to enable all partners to organise their project work for the coming six months and beyond.

From the Indian side, the Indian coordinator Prof. Ravindra Gudi (IITB) attended the meeting remotely whilst the Indian Project Manager Dr. Senthilmurugan Subbiah from the Indian Institute of Technology of Guwahati (IITG) managed to physically join in. Mr. Abhijit Bhaskar Joshi and Mr. Sachin Siddharam Patil from Jain Irrigation Systems Limited (JISL) also made it to Paris. This allowed to discuss the scope and conditions of the irrigation use case managed by Jain Irrigation. Overall, most of the Indian partners participated in the meting remotely, thus enabling fruitful discussions.

Co-creation and stakeholder engagement are central to LOTUS activities.  As a first step, the analysis of local ecosystem in India related to water quality in the areas of LOTUS case studies will help to identify local stakeholders to be involved in the process.

The LOTUS cases focus on water distribution networks, groundwater, irrigation, algae-based wastewater treatment and water distribution via tankers. They will also serve as pilots for the pre-commercialisation of LOTUS prototypes, showcasing how the proposed LOTUS solutions shall meet the end users’ needs.

Local stakeholders will be brought together in December 2019 in Indian regions to discuss their needs, which will be translated into sensor requirements. A series of LOTUS events will take place in December 2019 in India, with co-creation workshops, technical discussions around the confirmed use cases, and a project plenary.