The collaboration of DrainBot with its core partners BK Maschinenbau and IRNAS d.o.o. have been very fruitful recently. Besides a trusting relationship that we have built throughout this year that has helped us to get through the COVID-19 circumstances without any significant obstacles and slowdowns, our work has recently been recognised by the European Commission through awarding us funding for further demonstration of the usefulness of our technology. This is one of the important milestones for our company, as it represents the international acknowledgement of DrainBot technology and its ability to improve the tunnel drainage maintenance.
RIMA network
RIMA (Robotics for Inspection and Maintenance – ) is a pan-European network of institutions related to robotics and automation that support innovation in the space of infrastructure maintenance based on their expertise fields. 13 RIMA members, so called Digital Innovation Hubs and industry associations, are supporting the uptake of robotics by the European infrastructure operators by helping small and medium-sized companies to develop novel solutions for different industry sectors.
RIMA supports 50 cross-border projects involving European small and medium-sized enterprises including the demonstration of DrainBot’s technology. Besides non-equity funding, it contributes to such projects through an access to its expert network that allows faster and more market-focused technology development cycles. Through acceleration of time-to-market for robotics-based technologies in infrastructure maintenance space, RIMA is focusing on improving the status of Europe as one of the leading innovators in the robotics space. It also offers trainings to its members and supported projects that can build their resilience and ability to establish sustainable and future-oriented technologies and businesses.
Next Steps
As we are happy to receive support and recognition from such a very respectable institution, we are also happy to have found such supportive and responsible partners at this early stage in our company’s development. In the near future, we hope to be able to convince even more rail and road operators that our technology contributes to their business models not only through cost-cutting of tunnel drainage maintenance, but also through reducing the carbon footprint of tunnel maintenance and completely removing water consumption from the equation. While aligning our technology to our core values, we strongly believe that automated, robotic solutions are way to go for the infrastructure maintenance and that they represent not only a tool for revenue and profit optimisation, but also improvement of the environmental impact of infrastructure operation and maintenance.
LinkedIn RIMA network – https://www.linkedin.com/company/rima-network/
