About
Company Background
Mounce HydroSmart was formed in 2015 to provide specialised data analytics services to the water sector utilising both in depth knowledge of machine learning and data science AND extensive water sector domain knowledge for data analysis scoping studies, proof of concept, knowledge discovery and bespoke prediction and classification applications. In July 2023, MHS became an Ofwat Discovery Challenge Finalist and in February 2024 one of the Discovery Challenge Winners with the the ACQUIRE Project, awarded a share of £4.5 million to demonstrate over the next two years how bold solutions can help solve the biggest challenges facing our society’s water sector.
Director
Dr. Steve Mounce is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield. He has a PhD in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) and over 25 years experience in the hydroinformatics field. He had a part time role teaching AI at the Open University, including on Deep Learning and Generative AI from 2022-2024.
Dr. Mounce has authored more than 100 journal and conference papers and book chapters and an H-index of 21 / 25 (Scopus / Google Scholar). He won the 2010 IWEX University Challenge for an automated data driven leak detection pilot. His Artificial Intelligence based automated leak detection software has been commercialised by Servelec Technologies as FlowSure and is now deployed for real world use. The system was nominated for an ‘Innovative Technology’ Water Industry Achievement Award 2017 with Welsh Water for additional application to wastewater networks. Now an Ovarro solution called Datective Flowsure, it was adopted by Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water for implementation in 2020 to support ODI targets on Customer Minutes Lost and Leakage.
His specialties include: Application of Artificial Intelligence techniques such as Artificial Neural Networkss (MLPs, MDNs, TDNN, SOMs, CNNs and others), SVM, Fuzzy Logic, Ensemble Decision Trees/ Random Forests, CBR, Genetic Algorithms and Knowledge Based Systems for classification, prediction and pattern recognition/ data mining applications. Applying computer science skills to water engineering research in the areas of leakage, online event detection systems, sustainability assessment, big data and predictive analytics using machine learning and knowledge management. Latest research interests involve Deep learning, ontologies and knowledge extraction for intelligent agents/ chatbots (Generative AI including GPT3/4) and blockchain as a service for water. He is an active and experienced software developer (over 25 years experience in MATLAB, also Python and Keras for Deep Learning).
Industrial clients and partners on current and previous EPSRC, EU and industry projects include Yorkshire Water, Thames Water, United Utilities, Anglian Water, Welsh Water, Affinity Water, Wessex Water, Siemens, ABB, Isle Utilities, Syrinix, Invenio, Intellitect, Solvd, Cybula, EMS, Servelec Technologies, UKWIR and Vernon Morris.
Providing bespoke data driven analytics and machine learning applications for the water sector
