Adam Torres and Zahin Razeen discuss FII PRIORITY.
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Show Notes:
Listen to FII PRIORITY coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Zahin Razeen, Founder & CEO at Hydroquo+, explore Hydroquo+ and FII PRIORITY.
About Hydroquo+
Backed by Techstars, Hydroquo+ combines deep expertise in infrastructure challenges with cutting-edge technology to address today’s most critical data management issues. The organization utilizes state-of-the-art hardware and software to deliver advanced prescriptive and predictive tools, enabling smarter, data-driven decision-making across complex systems.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today is a very special episode. This is, an episode that’s part of our FII coverage series, and I have hin Razin on the line who he’s founder and CEO over at hydroco Plus.
First off, Zaen, welcome to show. Thank you Adam. Pleasure to be here. All right, Zahin. So correct me if I’m wrong here. I think you were at the Miami FII Is that, yeah, I know we didn’t cross paths, but it was a good thing I could get you booked in the interview, but you were in Miami, right? Yeah, I was there.
It was my second time in Miami. So second, FI, I always a pleasure to be there. Now, how did you originally get introduced to the organization? Right. So it was a very, very funny story. I was onboarding. A flight to New York for the UNGA summit, if you will.
And then I happened to get an email saying that they, they’re really interested to have me speak on the plenary of at FII for the future of humanity. I was like, okay, maybe it’s one of those spam emails. So you know, you get a lot of those yeah. Okay, fine. I, I didn’t look much into it.
Then I land again, then I see all the list of events and everything that it, it entails what FII constitutes fundamentally what their mission is. And I I was like, wow, this is incredible. This is like I’m sure I was pinching myself. I was like, okay, I’m sure this is real. Right?
And then I talked to Paloma, who happens to be a dear friend, who. Was the one who basically found me from my UN duties and basically put me forward the FII panel. And yeah I was, I was at the closing plenary session with his Excellency Muhammad, the lab bar who built.
Alfa, if you will. And and then he hosted like a series of founders and technologists social workers or what have you in a session that would seem to kind of, I would say bring in a lot of, audience and mm-hmm. And I’ve been working with them on a, a pro bono basis, obviously, like to, to be a good steward of FII, given that what it entails what it stands up for, and, to bring in everyone together.
I’ve recently published a paper with them on my work. So that’s always great. And yeah, so I’m always with FII across the board whenever I see an FII, I’m never gonna miss it because it’s, all the surprises that come with it as I’m not sure, been in Miami. Let’s get into the paper a bit.
So revolutionizing water safety. So maybe talk a little bit more about the reasoning behind this and what took place. Absolutely. So, it was kind of built on my uh, plenary session which was in 2023. And then about my work, which is to work at the intersection of energy and water security.
So and why is it so important to me? Water security or water safety? You know, I grew up in Bangladesh. It’s a country of 180 million people. It was part of the biggest mass poison in human history back in 2002 due to arsenic, seeping into the groundwater. So it basically contaminated 90% of the population.
Wow. So you can imagine it could have been easily prevented if they had surveillance technology to just preemptively provide diagnostics. So straight out of university I was studying at the University of Plaza in Scotland. You know you can call me the child of the un and my research paper was on epidemiology.
and I started working with what happens to be the world’s largest public water utility catering to 30 million people supplying water to them on a daily basis, dispensing 90 billion liters annually. So imagine if there’s a small chole outbreak. What happens? It. Crumbles the entire network and as well as the residential users.
So the technology was basically it would look into biochemical or biophysical parameters or, or any threshold breaches in real time. Provide prognostication to the plant operators the treatment plant managers, as well as network maintenance engineers so that they could be augmented with the insights to proactively solve any kind of pertinent threshold breaches.
Right? So this. ultimately translated to a full scale project to then what became a full-time company. and based on the 5 billion data points, I felt that, since it’s a universal application that we are undertaking so I’m also Caribbean and American as well. So in, in that sense, you know, I have so many stories to tell.
So bringing three different I would say cultures together and having that, manifest in a paper would be great. So. It seems to gain a lot of traction and it’s a technology that will hopefully create a lot of impact, mm-hmm. And also prevent a lot of future outbreaks. So I’m really grateful to FII for what all that they do and, and the platform that they provide across the board, you know?
Mm-hmm. Um. So, yeah, so that’s the we story of a, small startup endeavor that led to where it is today. So, yeah. When you’re putting together this white paper and you finally get to the end, I know whenever, you know, writing or researching anything, I mean, is there anything that surprised you, like as you were going through and creating this.
Yeah. So I was reflecting on the journey. You know, I’m a Gen Z at the end of the day. I, I, was a university startup and a project that translated to now what national agents across the world are using it to protect their safeguard their water network. Wow. And it’s residential users.
Right. So to see through the process of just. Having a tunnel vision to solve? I would say a very complex problem with I would say an obsessive I would say force. And then to see that manifest from a product, from an idea, from a lab research to a product to then ultimately a commercial use was something truly magnificent.
And now to see that now it’s being scaled up. From across the board, across the regions. So it was quite, quite, I would say like Jeff Bezos says, it’s just day one. So there’s more to be done. And hopefully this is means to an end, to something that would be greater outcome. Ultimately and a kind of enter twined with my mission and ethos is to complete, yeah, to safeguard water and ensure energy sufficiencies across the world, if you will, using.
Talk a little bit more. Speaking of the scaling up, talk a little bit more about where you’re at with Hydro Quo Plus today. So you mentioned, you know, starting university, then got coming up with the concept, now scaling up. Talk about where you’re at today. I. Right. So we think of us as a mini Palantir our drill for water and energy, right?
So we were mostly working with government agencies water utilities, some of the biggest water utilities in Asia middle East what have you. And ideally we’re trying to solve complex I would say network problems from, let’s say an application interface all the way to a physical problem that constitutes solving the problem.
I would say the forefront. So if you look at energy infrastructures or a water treatment plant infrastructure, they’re mission critical infrastructures. And they need preemptive protocols to be able to constantly mitigate any kind of. Anomalies critical failures that would directly impact any area or population surrounding it.
So what we’re trying to do is provide software interface it with a copilot which I’m sure everybody’s aware of at this point, and augment operators and empower them with insights to mitigate any kind of infrastructural challenges. That would again, impact a lot of people and places and cities in real time.
In doing so, they’re able to reduce opex reduce CapEx and use intelligence as a way to kind of constantly get ahead of their schedules of whatever that’s required. So creating that symbiosis. Right. And that would be some of the themes we’d talk about. It’s transhumanism, you know, co intelligence.
Mm-hmm. Would be the future of the next stages of, I would say whatever we are doing all related to ai. Yeah. And most, of the things that are being talked about are large language models. You know they’re being commoditized, but on a very, I would say superficial level, super flow level, but can be used for mission critical things.
And, and, hmm. Made available at a cost effective way. So that’s kind of the idea. And, and so that’s where we are at. Mm-hmm. We are working with some of, again, like, like I said, some of the largest national agencies. So this gives us critical bandwidth to continuously innovate and, and provide them with products that really empower cities, nations, and places, if you will.
Mm-hmm. For you, what does that look like? So transhumanism in, Asia, let’s just say for good, like what does that look like for you? Right. So you have to kind of always you know, first principles we’re talking about first principles, but can we talk about the infinite nature of, I would say the world, right?
Where does it all begin from? And if then only can you then hyper fixate on, the future, right? You gotta, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. So there are few things and principles or working mechanisms that I leverage. I’m sure you’re aware of the Kurdish off scale. Hmm. Uh, It, it talks about type one, type three and advanced civilizations or and the maximum net disposable energy that one planetary system would be able to, let’s say leverage to expand a particular actionable continuity.
So. Currently where we are in the grand scheme of things we are at a lowly hanging type zero civilization. We’re able to kind of harvest energy from earth living beings, creators, and then use that as an energy from potential onic energy to kind of continue to do about our daily activities. We’ve still yet to transfer energy from a different exo planet, right?
Mm-hmm. So within that realm, what can we do? To hyperscale, hyper accelerate the I would say advent of a Type zero civilization. What are the technologies that can interface within the civilization that is trying to reach that point and, could we humanize that to the point where we would organically transition to that point of type zero civilization?
So ai is that kind of assistive tooling if you will, to kind of act as an extension to what would be a tab zero civilization. So transferring energy from, let’s say, one planet to another planet, which obviously SpaceX is trying to do. The Starship is trying to go to Mars and set up. Different basis, but that would again be scratching the surface.
Mm-hmm. So when you look at that long-term horizon, you’re only then able to understand and kind of visualize how and what you can be doing to do it. So the three fundamental things become very important. That’s energy, food, and water security. and most of these technologies that are being used to commoditize, let’s say commercial applications are not being used to make breakthroughs in these, fields to make sure that it becomes a sustenance that is fully a cyclic by nature to the point where it does not become a finite energy attribute, rather becomes a energy attribute so that types of civilization can manifest.
but if you were to then li kind of then kind of apply that as a Kurdish off scale and see where do we stand in this kind of micro scale of Kurdish off civilizations, if you will. I’m, I’m sure you’ve kind of come across Ray K while he wrote the book. He co authored and kind of familiar ourselves with you know, singularity.
Mm-hmm. Uh, Singularity is a kind of coined from mathematics where anything that is divided by zero. Leads to a singularity, or when energy collapses to a stateless state, if you will mm-hmm. To where it condenses to a point of divergence. Right? So that’s where you look into a Dyson sphere or a black hole, if you will, or event horizon.
But in a, human singularity. We are in there, there’s six stages, right? So thousands of years ago we derived from nucleus due to this expanding supernuclear force that we have that continuously takes our proton electrons across out of the nucleus, that expansionist force allowed us to continue to.
Evolve to, let’s say from that you know, epoch stage one to epoch stage two, which is what, what led to the chemistry and physics to combine and le lead to the creation of carbon atoms? Carbons were obviously very fundamentally useful because now. It would create a case for evolutionary biology to take place.
So then we had the Cambrian explosion where the I would say the organism started interacting, right? And then we went to stage four of the civilization where now intelligence is being used. and it. Was able to evolve only because we had a dexterous, I would say limbs and, and thumbs, which was and fingers, which was one of the primary reasons why we were able to transliterate and extend our conscious stream through communicating complex problems.
In a rote format or in general, just in a which way? Using linguistics is a way like I’m doing right now. Mm-hmm. To kind of transcend Stage five is where? Singularity kind of converges, right? And that’s where we’re almost at that kind of inflection, tipping point, if you will. Mm-hmm. So ideally, whatever may be the case, but what I’m trying to do, or what Hydroco is fundamentally trying to do to create those conditions so that we can take that transcendental step to stage five of the life of the epoch of the stages. Five, where we can then create a co intelligence so that consciousness can expand at a more, I would say, high rate.
And that is through interfacing technologies and solving complex problems. Mm-hmm. in, I would say fields that are usually not looked into. and then making that humanized to the point where it can be used to solve massive problems. And so using software technology, hardware technology and then, you know the assistive AI that we have nowadays to, to kind of create that COHEs element to then, you know, create that extension of a human extension, if you will.
So that’s kind of a fundamental that kind of mechanism how I think and how we’re trying to kind of converge that and kind of. Pushed this into a philosophy you for using AI for social good if you will. Yeah. Hin, this has been really enlightening today. Having you on and also learning more about the work that you’re doing at hydroco Plus.
That being said, only so much we can get done in a, you know, 20, 25 minute podcast interview. So I know people that are listening that want to continue to follow your work, your company, your impact. How do people connect? How do they, how do they follow up? How do they learn more? Just an email away.
So it’s hin [email protected] and you know just the website’s there a one click and you’d be able to see what some of the things that we are working on, exciting projects that we’re doing. And I would love to create synergies if you will. So yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to that.
Wonderful and probably listening, just so you know. We’ll definitely put the links in the show notes, so you could just click on the link and head right on over and speaking in the audience. If this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Zahi, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you, Adam. Cheers.
