The city-as-beta-test case: EmNet — and a flag on the register's expectation

ITEM 6 · 2004–2018 · SEATED, AT ITS FOUNDING, ON THIS GROUND

FLAG, printed loudly as the brief requires: the register scored this item a shortfall and predicted "a printed negative is the expected outcome," on the reasoning that no municipality exists on this ground to birth software. The EmNet pattern the checklist names — municipal software born in one city's works and sold outward to cities across the country — exists in this county whole, and its founding firm was seated in Granger. The register's expectation is superseded by the evidence below; no banked fragment contradicts (the case appears in no banked fragment), but the parent should conform the register's expectation line at banking.

The course: in 2004, Notre Dame civil-engineering professor Jeffrey Talley led a research team — with electrical-engineering professor Michael Lemmon, Purdue engineers including Saurabh Bagchi, and the City of South Bend's public-works department under Gary Gilot — to build a wireless sensor-and-control network for South Bend's combined sewers. Graduate students in the research program formed the company to commercialize it. Purdue University's June 2008 release states it in one sentence: EmNet, "founded in 2004 and located in Granger, Ind." Government Technology's July 2010 account states the same seating: "Granger, Ind.-based EmNet was founded in 2004 to commercialize the research from Notre Dame and Purdue." Later accounts (Xylem's 2018 acquisition release; Notre Dame Magazine) call EmNet a "South Bend company" and describe its launch as "a collaborative partnership between the City of South Bend, Indiana, and the University of Notre Dame, led by Luis Montestruque, PhD, and initially funded by the State of Indiana" — the two seatings print together, unmerged: Granger in the founding-era record (2008, 2010), South Bend in the later corporate record, the move between them undated in the records reached.

South Bend was the beta test in the acquirer's own words: Xylem's release states that "South Bend served as EmNet's beta client for many years as the company developed its platform of RT-DSS tools and applications." The system, CSOnet, was installed citywide by February 2008 (GovTech's count: 110 wireless sensors across almost 40 square miles; the Purdue release counts 105 manhole-mounted sensors — both counts print as their sources give them), and by 2010 stood fully commissioned: Notre Dame's own account credits it with keeping more than a billion gallons of overflow a year out of the St. Joseph River and saving the city $1.5 million annually; in late 2011 South Bend became, in IBM's release, "the first city in the world to manage its water systems in the cloud," on EmNet's network. The outward sale followed the pattern exactly: by the Notre Dame Magazine account the firm had equipment in Indiana's four largest cities and was working in Illinois, Ohio, Washington D.C., Hoboken and Manhattan; Xylem's release adds Los Angeles and San Francisco. On February 6, 2018, Xylem Inc. acquired EmNet, LLC, terms undisclosed — the beta-tested municipal software of this county, built by a firm founded on this ground, sold whole to a global water-technology company fourteen years after its founding. Granger has no municipality; it had, at the founding, the company. The distinction is the finding.

Sources:

1. Purdue University news release, June 4, 2008 — EmNet "founded in 2004 and located in Granger, Ind."; 105 manhole-mounted sensors; Talley, Lemmon, Bagchi; Gilot.
2. Government Technology, July 27, 2010 — "Granger, Ind.-based EmNet was founded in 2004"; CSOnet citywide installation completed February 2008; 110 sensors, ~40 square miles.
3. Xylem Inc. release (Business Wire), February 6, 2018 — acquisition of EmNet, LLC; launched 2004 as a City of South Bend / Notre Dame partnership led by Luis Montestruque; state-funded initially; "South Bend served as EmNet's beta client for many years"; BLU-X platform; Los Angeles and San Francisco among its cities.
4. Notre Dame Magazine, "A sewer system to make others flush with envy"; Notre Dame Stories, "Going with the Flow" — the billion-gallon and $1.5-million figures; the client spread; the DARPA-seeded research line through Lemmon.
5. IBM / PR Newswire, June 27, 2012 — South Bend "the first city in the world to manage its water systems in the cloud"; dry-weather overflows cut from 27 to one in the first year.