ioLight welcomes Amore Aqua as our Water Quality Partner in Sweden

ioLight is delighted to welcome our latest Water Quality partner, Amore Aqua, based in Sweden. CEO, Jing Li and her team are passionate about using digital technology to diagnose and treat cyanobacteria. ioLight’s compact microscopes, partnered with BloomOptix’s AI for cyanobacteria cell counts, are a natural fit for Amore Aqua’s portfolio.

We caught up with Dr Li to find out more.

We’re excited to explore the new partnership between ioLight and AmoreAqua and have prepared some questions to help our community understand the collaboration and the people behind it.

Please introduce yourself and your role at AmoreAqua

My name is Jing Li and I am Managing Director for AmoreAqua.

How would you describe what your company does and what drives your mission?

AmoreAqua has a vision to secure water safety and has a mission to provide smart water solutions, particularly targeting cyanotoxin risk.

How did ioLight and AmoreAqua first connect?

We share the same mission to provide tools to manage cyanotoxin risk in water. In my research project, we are actively developing different tools to tackle harmful algal blooms (HABs). HABs are systematic problems that require a multi-level approach. We would like to provide more choices for our customers to choose, which are of low cost, handy and user-friendly.

How do you envision AmoreAqua’s water quality management solutions and ioLight’s portable microscopy technology complementing one another?

AmoreAqua’s water quality management solutions focus on automating monitoring programs, particularly using sensor technologies, satellite services and machine learning, providing customers with information on what happened in the past, what the current status is, and what the short-term trend is, and giving alerts for sampling for further examination. Here ioLight’s portable microscopy technology can complement to examine what types of species they are and if they are toxic or not. Vice versa, our sensor online real-time information and Satellite near real-time information can provide users of ioLight’s microscopy to know when and where to take samples.

Are there specific water quality challenges this partnership aims to address for your customers?

General bloom condition and Toxic algae species information are addressed for my customers.

How might the ioLight + BloomOptix capability to identify cyanobacteria in Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) in-the-field enhance Amore Aqua’s services?

This will provide more alternative solutions for customers who cannot afford expensive systems, i.e. cheaper sensor option/ virtual sensor based on machine learning plus ioLight+BloomOptix. The solution will empower more to setup toxic algal bloom surveillance systems, particularly for small water treatment plants.

How does portable, real-time analysis change the value proposition for your water quality management services?

From Risk Indicators → to Confirmed Identification Value: Greater confidence in alerts and faster decision-making
Elevating Service from Monitoring to Diagnostics with Premium (sensor + microscopic diagnostics)
Enables global service expansion without needing on-site lab technicians.

How do you foresee the use of artificial intelligence, like BloomOptix, developing in water quality management?

I work with AI for water resources management in general. BloomOptix can support other aspects such as zooplankton studies and plant health diagnosis etc. We use AI most for data-driven models and prediction analysis. I would imagine in the near future, it will help with water treatment design and facilitate the treatment process and provide decision making in searching for new sources of data, automatic surveillance, etc.

Beyond HAB analysis, are there other water quality parameters you undertake at AmoreAqua which could benefit from the portable microscopy and in-field analysis enabled by ioLight’s product range?

Plant disease diagnosis and bacteria detection.

What excites you most about working with ioLight?

More learning opportunities in each other’s network and, of course, to see the microworld and investigate what it tells us.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about the partnership or what it means for the future of water quality management and Amore Aqua?

1+1 > 2; together we are stronger to bring the world a better place.

You can learn more about Amore Aqua at amoreaqua.com