News

A Look into the Greenpreneurs Projects of 2019

Seoul, Republic of Korea, September 19, 2019 –

Four candidates of GGGI’s Greenpreneurs program offered to share their experiences on how they developed the idea for their projects and information on their new green enterprises.

Rent-On-Recycle Water

Rent-On-Recycle Water is one of the teams in the last stages of this year’s competition, with their project offering the unique opportunity to bring a sustainable long-term solution to the lack of recycled treated wastewater usage in Bangalore. As only less than 30% of treated recycled wastewater is being utilized in Bangalore, their team saw the opportunity to economically reduce their water footprint by linking the suppliers of the recycled water to buyers who could utilize it. Beyond the improvements it makes for water supply, it benefits the local community as sellers can earn money from their unused recycled water and the buyers can save up to 60% by switching to this extra supply. The team shared that members of “GGGI have inspired us to be social innovators in our globalized society”.

 

Aeloi Technologies

Aeloi Technologies started from the need for safe reliable transport at night for the streets of Nepal. The co-founder, Sonika Manandhar, noticed the issue that buses in Kathmandu stopped after 8pm, leaving taxis or motorcycles as the predominantly remaining options. The co-founder discovered that safa tempos, electric minibuses, were an ideal alternative but the owners of these vehicles often lacked the access to finance to be able to fund the batteries used to operate them. Therefore, the fintech social enterprise called “Aeloi” was developed. Aeloi Technologies sought to increase the number of safa tempos in the country by providing a technology platform to help the safa tempo drivers gain access to investment through digital tokens for micro-impact investments, affordable loans, and assistance with the repayment and savings process.

The company shared that “The Greenpreneurs program has been tremendously helpful in helping us carve out time to look at each part of our business from a holistic point of view … We will continue to use the knowledge and skills we learnt from Greenpreneurs to move forward with our pilots”.

 

Plaswood

As approximately 300 million tons of plastic is produced annually, and in Cambodia, each day an estimated 10 million plastic bags are used in the capital city, the founder of “Plaswood” became concerned with finding the solution. Thus, one day coming to the realization that the plywood he was using could be replaced by plastic if crushed into pieces, creating Plaswood. His innovative product improves the environment in multiple ways by re-using plastic waste to create the ply-plastic product, reducing the use of trees, and offering greater durability than the alternative sources.

The founder of the green enterprise expressed how “Greenprenuer has given more insight about social lean business plan while the impact modelling is the key point to make the business more realistic. Guest speakers are invited to share their experiences regarding their stories of successes and failures. It has been an amazing experience to have been working virtually with the program”.

 

BactoWatt

Globally, wastewater is disposed without treatment due to the additional costs and energy it would consume, and as much as 80% of the global wastewater leads back into the ecosystem. For instance, the team of BactoWatt noticed how the polluted water in the Yamuna River, located in India, has been an issue plaguing the local community who us it, leading to bone deformities, fluoride poisoning, and water-borne diseases. To help contribute to solving numerous of the critical issues we currently face, including clean water and sanitation, climate change, and energy needs. BactoWatt was developed to treat wastewater in a sustainable way, able to lower CO2 emissions and save time and costs through the use of microbial fuel cells, which are microorganisms that can transform biochemical energy to electrical energy. The idea for BactoWatt will be to, therefore, transform wastewater into a renewable energy.

The team shared how “being a part of the Greenpreneurs program has been one of the most enriching experiences into entrepreneurship for BactoWatt. Greenpreneurs and its wonderful team have put together an amazing program which will help pave the way for incredible sustainable ideas to take shape for generations to come”.

To learn more about about the above-mentioned Greenpreneurs projcts, read the full blogs from the candidates:

Rent-On-Recycle Water

Aeloi Technologies

Plaswood

BactoWatt

 

About Greenpreneurs

Greenpreneurs is a twelve-week global green entrepreneurship accelerator and competition open to youth between the ages of 17 and 35. Youth may submit their idea for a solution that positively impacts the future of sustainable energy; water and sanitation; sustainable landscapes (forestry and agriculture); or green city development. The goal of Greenpreneurs is to unlock, accelerate and support the natural innovative tendencies of youth to foster a generation of climate and development leaders that are collaborative implementers of green solutions.