Acquea – The Water and Environment friendly app

Water has always been a source of life and development. Ancient civilizations settled along riverbanks, where they built villages that grew over the centuries into vast cities: this is what happened in Rome, built on the banks of the River Tiber.

Today, the world has changed and become digital, but water continues to be the most important and essential resource for communities and territories: a resource to be discovered and valued. This is the criterion at the foundation of Acquea – the community for people who love water and the environment.

“Our aim is to create a water community of people who care about environmental sustainability and use water responsibly.  The application was “created to encourage the use of reusable water bottles and enhance the area's beauty, starting from water sources and distribution points.” Says Marco Roncucci, a development team member.

Completely revamped, Acquea is the evolution of Acea Waidy Wow, developed in 2019 by the Acea Group to promote the sustainable use of water. Available in Italian, English and Spanish, Acquea retains the key features of Acea Waidy Wow while also introducing new ones, providing a more modern service that better meets users’ needs.

Launched initially as Acea Waidy Wow,  the app was created by a team within the Acea Group, made up of employees who took part in Innovation Garage, the company’s internal entrepreneurship program designed to promote a culture of innovation and bring value to new ideas. Waidy Wow, that was among the over 100 candidates at Call 4 Ideas, was selected as one of the three finalists and was able to participate in the incubation process. “A twelve-week development sprint for the first prototype of the project," says Patrizia Spisso.

The app aims at encouraging users to adopt positive behaviours that benefit the entire community.

Moreover, it has been –and continues to be- a great opportunity for the team that came up with the project, as well as for the Acea Group and the local community.

The interdisciplinary nature of different fields and roles represented without doubt one of the strong points of this project. It was based on the organizational model of a start-up: few people that need to be able to take care of different aspects. This model was a success and allowed all members of the team to learn new skills and generate value in other company projects, for example, by starting communication initiatives to promote the culture of water and the beauty of the territory.

“Many of us work in a completely different field. While developing the app, we had to deal with a variety of departments – e.g., for legal aspects and contracts, cyber security, privacy, suppliers, as well as communications – and we discovered a new world. Working with them allowed us to explore not just the functionalities of the app but also aspects linked with the storytelling to promote Waidy.” Stefano explains.