THE INNOVATORS
Gastón Dussaillant of Capta Hydro: Innovating for Irrigators Worldwide
A Capta CFT surface water telemetry device installed in a flow-gauging structure in one of the canals of the Maipo Canal Association irrigation distict, just south of Santiago, Chile.
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apta Hydro is a company that embodies the axiom that the closing of one door can allow another to open. Gastón Dussaillant cofounded the company to address one type of water opportunity: hydrokinetic generation in open canals. Although this initial venture proved unsuccessful, it opened his eyes to another opportunity: the need for simple, cost-effective, and durable surface water telemetry and canal gate automation solutions. Seeing the problems with available technology, Capta Hydro developed new telemetry and automation hardware that is accurate, durable, resistant to theft or vandalism, powered by solar energy and that can easily integrate into existing irrigation infrastructure. In this interview, Mr. Dussaillant tells Irrigation Leader about Capta’s origins, the process of developing its telemetry, automation, and software products, and how the company is seeking to promote the better use of surface irrigation water worldwide.
Gastón Dussaillant: I’m Chilean and am currently based in Santiago, Chile. I’ve been an entrepreneur for almost
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PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPTA.
Irrigation Leader: Tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
10 years. Over the last 6 or 7 years, I have partnered with my cofounder, Emilio De La Jara, who is a mechanical engineer and the main inventor of our products. We’ve been keen on developing a technology company to focus on solving environmental problems. First, we tried for almost a year and a half to develop wave energy converters before realizing that we needed more money and time than we realistically could access here. Then we pivoted to micro hydropower for artificial canals. My cofounder had some experience in that field and had done some prototypes with one of the top universities in Chile. That seemed more promising and achievable, considering that there are tons of canals all over the world that represent hydrokinetic potential energy that is not recovered with traditional technologies. We thought we could develop something noninvasive and easy to install that could generate competitive distributed energy. That was the idea on which we founded Capta Hydro in late 2015. By mid-2017, we had a working pilot, but we realized again that to develop a market-ready product, we needed access to capital willing to take technology risk, which is scare here. We also became aware of other challenges, such as the pressure of
