Water’s Global Challenge: Booky Oren on De-Risking Innovation to Scale Implementation

Water doesn’t fail for lack of technology—it fails for lack of implementation. In this VX News interview, Booky Oren, former executive chair of Israel’s national water utility and CEO and founder of Booky Oren Global Water Technologies, explains why scaling proven water solutions remains so difficult, what utilities actually need to manage risk, and how global knowledge-sharing can accelerate resilience.

From Israel and California to Singapore and beyond, Oren argues that water resilience depends on diversified portfolios, data-driven decisions, and institutional patience—not silver bullets. As AI and data centers add new pressure to water systems, he urges planners to treat disruption as an opportunity to plan smarter, not panic. The future of water, he says, will be decided by the choices made in the next five years.

”The water sector needs innovation…[from innovation] to implementation means sharing best practices.” — Booky Oren

Booky, introduce yourself to our readers. How has your career trajectory shaped how you assess risk, scale, and execution in water today?

First of all, thank you for the opportunity to be here and to be interviewed by you. I don’t think that’s trivial, and I see it as a great opportunity. Maybe that’s part of my career…identifying opportunities.

In the first half of my career, I worked in very competitive industries, including the financial industry—credit cards—and then, almost 25 years ago, I moved from high-tech into the water sector. I came from industries that deal all the time with profitability and achieving higher market share, and I moved into water.

At the beginning, I was still in a commercial industry—irrigation—but then I made a deliberate decision that water would be my career. I joined the public sector and became the executive chairman of Mekorot, Israel’s national water company. I came with a vision to build an industry around water. First in Israel, and then globally.

Over the last 25 years, my career has taken me from highly competitive industries into the water sector, where everything is different, especially true for the utility world. It’s much more regulated, regulation is far more influential, and risk mitigation plays a central role. At the same time, utilities consistently have a strong desire to improve performance. So, in principle, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since: supporting that effort—understanding how to mitigate risk globally while improving performance, again, globally.

You’ve long argued that water’s core challenge isn’t innovation, but implementation. Elaborate on why scaling and implementing proven water technologies remains so difficult.

When you are dealing with improving performance, innovation is mandatory. You must do things better. But what I’ve seen in the water sector is something I call the challenge of innovation to implementation. Innovation is the start, but until you understand the mechanisms of the sector, you don’t see large-scale implementation. Implementation is a system, not an event - governance, data/process integration, procurement pathways, cyber reviews, and dedicated funding for the first full‑scale deployment. That’s the bridge we help utilities cross. The water sector needs innovation, but it is much more motivated by improving performance. Before it takes risk, it needs to be sure that risk is very well calculated.

This is a public sector, highly regulated. You cannot approach it like the regular high-tech industry or the financial industry. Innovation is very important, but appreciating the mechanics of the industry is just as important. Moving from innovation to implementation means sharing best practices. That understanding is what took my journey over the years toward global knowledge sharing.

For context, Israel is often cited as a water “success story.” What lessons translate to California’s large, fragmented systems—and which do not?

First of all, Israel’s story is about not relying on one source of water. You need a portfolio of sources. Relying only on rainfall is very challenging. 

Israel developed, over the years, a portfolio of solutions—collecting rainfall, reuse, desalination, strong emphasis on conservation, and creating a network that can mobilize water from one region to another. Some of these lessons are relevant to California.

But Israel is a small country. You cannot copy Israel. Not everything that works in Israel works in California. Israel has a lot to learn from California, and California from Israel. For example, reuse is now a major issue in California, and it’s being pursued at a very large scale. At the same time, when it comes to resilience and emergency response, much of the world is following California. This has to be a two-way knowledge exchange.

Ultimately, mitigating risk happens through sharing best practices—successes and failures. That’s the real lesson.

You’ve worked globally across utilities, with governments, and the private sector. Has a “silver bullet" to reliably supply the right quality and quantity been found?

I’d say again, that everywhere in the world, the mission is the same: to supply water in the right quantity and the appropriate quality. No one has a silver bullet.

In the next few months alone, I’ll be in Singapore, Miami, and Los Angeles. Each place has a different portfolio of solutions, but the common principle is not relying on one source of water and optimizing across the system.

The concept of data is becoming critical to that optimization; everything must be based on data. And yes, we can talk about AI…but data is the foundational component. Data enables global knowledge sharing, which is essential for resilience.

For readers unfamiliar, elaborate on your knowledge-to-implementation focus, specifically concerning the K2i platform. What merits participation, and what problems is it solving?

K2i is a global network of utilities sharing knowledge with one another—without vendors, without consultants, and without commercial influence. Utilities are often hesitant when they sense commercial interests in the room. When we talk about mitigating risk, that matters. 

In practical terms, K2i turns proven practices into implementation playbooks and helps utilities adopt them across a lifecycle - assess, design & govern, pilot with KPIs, scale & embed, and sustain - so change sticks in daily operations.

What we’ve built is a trusted global network, from Singapore to Hawaii, where utilities share challenges and solutions continuously. Several California utilities participate, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, Los Angeles Sanitation, Las Virgenes MWD, and hopefully, more will join soon, alongside utilities from around the world. We document and facilitate a knowledge exchange so no one has to reinvent the wheel.

Importantly, the only question in the world is not limited to successes. Knowing what to avoid saves enormous time and cost. Sharing both successes and failures, profession to profession, is what allows real implementation at scale. And that’s what we do, and we do it on a global scale.

Within the K2i network today, are utilities and agencies facing the same challenges—or is there meaningful variation in what they’re grappling with?

There is a big variation—and that is exactly the idea. At the same time, there is repetition. Professionals call it the network effect. 

Today, we are seeing challenges that come out of New York becoming relevant to Los Angeles. That kind of cross-connection is happening for the first time. For example, work being done in the Los Angeles region is now something people in New York want to learn from.

Just yesterday, there was a new AI solution already implemented in Virginia. Without any involvement of the vendor, we are in the process of sharing it with the LA County Sanitation Districts. This kind of knowledge exchange is happening all the time. Something that happens in one region can be highly relevant in another.

When we talk about water reuse, for example, many facilities are now being built in Southern California. Just yesterday, we agreed on setting up a meeting between facilities in California and Arizona to exchange knowledge on how to build and operate them efficiently. And it’s not always about technology. It can be about human resources, procurement, or operational practices; anything relevant to utilities that want to improve performance.

…And capital? Where are you seeing the investments being made—and is capital flowing to the right technologies?

Well, I’d say first, there is no lack of money in the water sector for innovation. The real question is whether there is enough patience. The water sector is huge, and demand for reliable technologies is very strong. But technology vendors and consulting engineers need to understand how implementation actually happens in this sector.

People often ask whether the problem is innovation. It’s not…there are plenty of technologies. The key is whether technologies listen to the needs of utilities. Take PFAS as an example. There are many solutions available. The real issue is how you implement them.

When utilities like Orange County share knowledge with utilities in the Netherlands, they’re not just talking about the technology—they’re sharing how to deploy it, whether through ion exchange, GAC, or combinations of approaches. There is no reason for anyone to reinvent the wheel in the water sector. If you focus on listening, knowledge sharing allows you to mitigate risk and drive efficiency.

You’ve emphasized successes here—but share what’s being learned from the failures. Which failure points would you identify as most common in deployment?

Bad listening capability. When people don’t understand the mentality of their counterpart. When they don’t have patience. Many expect something to mature in three years, when the implementation process actually takes five, six, or seven years. Then they leave the sector and say, “These people don’t understand how to implement things.” That’s the wrong conclusion.

Often, we see a lack of patience when people approach this very sensitive and very large sector. They don’t respect it enough…and that’s where failure comes from. You need to understand the mechanisms of the sector. 

We also see losses of institutional memory. Capturing the ‘why’ behind decisions - via structured interviews and searchable playbooks - prevents relearning the same lessons with every turnover. The K2i Global knowledge sharing helps do that and avoid reinventing the wheel.

Zooming out 10–20 years, what near-term decisions will most likely determine whether regions adapt or fail—on water resilience?

The only clarity we have about 10–20 years ahead is that we don’t have clarity. That’s exactly why we need a portfolio of water sources and we cannot rely on one source. We need surface water, reuse, groundwater—and yes, desalination, once environmental issues are addressed. We need all of it.

But this cannot be handled through slogans. You need to be very specific about how solutions are implemented—how water is mobilized from one region to another, how systems respond to fires or flooding, how networks are monitored, and how we move toward online, real-time monitoring.

I’m very optimistic about the future. There is clarity about what we need. The tools already exist. Experience is diversified around the world. The question is how to bring it together…

When we talk about a reality 10–20 years out, the real decisions must be made in the next 5 years. The building blocks are already here. What’s required is a state of mind—being open, integrating everything into one picture, making decisions, and staying flexible as uncertainty unfolds.

On that note, data centers and AI are dominating water discussions globally. From your work within the K2i network, how are utilities actually assessing the long-term water implications?

Yes, you’re right—data centers are evolving everywhere. When we talk about AI and the digital world, it means we will need more data centers. But when you actually calculate the amount of water supplied versus the water demand of data centers, it’s not a significant issue at the system level. It can be significant locally, but globally it’s manageable.

I would even say something else: when you plan water properly, there is no water problem. There are enough water sources. The challenge is planning and making decisions on time.

When you look at total water consumption—especially in places like Southern California—the water demand from data centers is relatively small. Locally, yes, it can be challenging, so you plan ahead and solve the problem. But I would not stop projects or create panic because of data centers.

Instead, I would look at how it’s done in Nevada, which is another desert with many data centers. I would look at Singapore. I often see data centers as an opportunity, and turning a ‘crisis’ into a growth engine is a very good approach, because it often pushes systems to become better.

Last question: As you head to Singapore, what does “success” look like for you in these global meetings—and more broadly, in your work with K2I?

Sharing knowledge. That’s success. You mentioned your VerdeXchange Conference in Los Angeles, from May 31 to June 2nd, and I see your role as very complementary to what I try to do. I cannot cover the world. What you are doing, bringing people together and sharing knowledge, is essential.

In Singapore next week, we’ll be holding workshops focused on knowledge exchange. Singapore hasn’t been part of this network before, and there is a strong appetite to learn from others. They are very good, but more importantly, they are truly open to learning.

California is a huge place—with one of the largest economies in the world—but not everything happens in California. A lot is happening elsewhere, and what you are doing is bringing global knowledge to California, and also bringing California’s experience to the world. I’m very happy to support this movement in mobilizing knowledge, in order to make things better for all of us.