AI Meets Hygiene: Visionstate’s John Putters Charts a Cleaner Future for Our Public Washrooms

Canadian washrooms are on the cusp of a data-driven overhaul, according to John Putters, chief executive of Visionstate Corp. (TSXV: VIS), a company that channels Internet-of-Things and big-data know-how into the unglamorous but essential business of facility hygiene. “Wanda is really designed to keep people accountable when it comes to facility management,” he told InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, contrasting his firm’s sensor-enabled tracking with the traditional—and fallible—paper sign-off sheet. By logging “who did what, when, where,” the Wanda platform gives managers real-time evidence of whether a restroom received a deep clean or merely “a soft clean.” That audit trail has taken on new urgency with Ontario’s Bill 190, which, Putters explained, compels “public-facing businesses” to maintain electronic cleaning records and digitally display “the last two times the restroom was cleaned.” Visionstate’s answer is WandaLITE, a streamlined, QR-code-based offshoot of its flagship software that Putters said was “built to specifically address Bill 190” is now finding national traction; last week, a regional airport became the first deployment outside Ontario, underscoring what he called the technology’s “huge step forward” for public health. The company is closing the loop with MIRA, an inspection tool that enables managers to “take swabs to measure the cleanliness,” and is nearing a prototype AI module—developed with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute—to generate optimized cleaning routes and schedules. “Diseases are popping up all the time,” Putters warned, noting that COVID-19 lingers and measles has returned, “so there’s really no excuse at this point” for facilities that fail to modernize their hygiene protocols.