UNLEASH

Winners from first three UNLEASH Hacks have been found

From September 19-20, the first three UNLEASH Hacks took place in India (Bharat), Ghana and the Dominican Republic. At the end of the Hacks all teams got to pitch their final ideas to a panel of judges.

India (Bharat) Gold winner:

The winning solution address the unsustainable financial model for plastic waste collection in the mountains. Their idea was to create a platform to establish a direct connection between waste pickers, brands, and innovative recyclers. The team envisions to aggregate the informal waste workers from nearby regions of Darjeeling into SHGs & eliminate the unnecessary waste aggregators by creating an online platform to establish a direct connection between waste pickers, brands & innovative recyclers. It would give the informal waste collectors a sustainable source of income, further incentivizing them to collect, segregate, and process waste. SHGs would enter details of quantity & types of waste collection which will be shared with brands & recyclers in real-time who will then select what type & quantity of waste they want to transport to their recycling units. The app would also have a section of document upload for brands for EPR compliance.

See all pitches here.

Ghana Gold Winner:

This solution provides households with locally produced water storage facilities coupled with ceramic water filters. This eliminates the risk of water contamination from the point of storage to use. By providing households with affordable, simple to use, water storage facilities coupled with ceramic water purifiers, impurities and contaminants that might have got into the water from point of collection and storage would be eliminated. This would lead to households having access to clean water at the point of use.

See all pitches here.

Dominican Republic Gold winner:

Organics is a major polluter and health hazard that is often overlooked in the waste ecosystem. This team offers a fully integrated value chain solution that tackles the problem at the source. The solution is to create a private company that acts as an intermediary between the public sector and the private sector in facilitating initiatives necessary to create an organic waste value chain. Utilizing big data and measuring weight at restaurants to make the collection of organic waste streamlined through optimized scheduling and routing. The bins that are placed restaurants, hotels etc. can act as a focal point where households can deposit their organic waste.  The goal is to make organics separation as trendy as plastic recycling.

See all pitches here.