On September 20, 2022, on Tuesday, The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) organised "The Swachhata Startup Conclave" as part of the Swachh Amrit Mahotsav to felicitate 30 startups, identified through the Swachhata Startup Challenge, to help strengthen the sanitation and waste management sector at the conclave at The Ambedkar International Centre. In it, people participated from various states and organisations offline as well as through online platforms.
The event began with the inaugural session, after which some Urban Local Bodies engaged in ‘reverse pitches’ to highlight specific ground-level problems they are facing in their concerned states and localities.
Since India is a diverse country, the problems faced by different parts of India vary due to climate and geographical variations. So, they stated their localities' challenges, in a bid to motivate startups to work on finding innovative solutions to the challenges.
As part of the day’s deliberations, four teams of Urban Local Bodies presented their successful collaboration with startups where they supported them in the form of space for setting up facilities, market buyers’ linkages, etc, which piloted their solutions on the ground.
The day-long event also featured learning and networking activities for all, an exhibition by the 30 Startups showcasing their solutions, a discussion on policy initiatives for promoting Startups for Garbage Free Cities, and sharing of success stories by entrepreneurs & founders of Unicorns.
Naming one of the unicorns was Ather, which gave very deep insights into its success and journey. The head of the company told that they have a lot of firsts in their name like the First to have a digital speedometer, the First to have so good mileage, the First to have this long-range travel at one time and that too in Electric vehicles and so on.
A booklet was launched in which all 30 startups were beautifully described and their contacts were also mentioned there. Of these 30, 16 were on Zero dump startups, 5 on social exclusion, 4 on plastic waste and 5 were on transparency startups. A total of 244 unique ideas came in and woman's representation was really good, comprising 100 of them. From all over the country, startups came from 23 states & UTs covered, with the highest number in Maharastra. To name a few startups were Ecowrap, The kabadiwala, Ecokaari, padcare labs, Celligo Natural fibres, MuddleArt, Minimines Cleantech, Aloe Ecell, Uneako and many more.
Mudita & Radhesh came up with something new, they used waste of chicken and meat i.e their hairs were used to make beautiful & soft feather fibre which was made into delicate and cosy mufflers and shawls. Uneako creates eco-friendly products like bamboo speakers, customizable stationery and conference & office kits etc. Aloe Ecell is producing eco-friendly batteries-replacing toxic and hazardous chemicals of conventional batteries with herbal electrolytes. They are also working to track, collect & recycle used batteries into fertilizers. Quality Decor Dzines is also one startup, stopping the burning of tyres and release of harmful gases by making beautiful home decor, furniture, benches, swings and designing landscapes with used tyres. Gen Robotic innovations developed Bandicoot, the world's first robotic scavenger, using Robotics and AI, which ensured total exemption from human entry to help eliminate the decade-old practice of manual scavenging. Green Delight Innovations is trying to address the problem of plastic in sanitary pads by producing pads completely made of plant fibres which are completely free of plastic.
The event ended with an award ceremony and felicitations done by the Hon’ble Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Kaushal Kishore. Secretary MoHUA Manoj Joshi, H.E. Ambassador of France to India Emmanuel Lenain, and AFD Country Director Bruno Bosle were also present at the Conclave.
This session was quite enlightening, as we learned about the functioning of municipalities. It was very insightful and enlightened us about the importance of waste management, and startups.
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