Now that the Cisco World Drawback Solver Problem 2022 winners have been formally introduced, you’ll need to study extra about every successful staff and the story behind every innovation. The Cisco World Drawback Solver Problem is a web-based competitors that awards money prizes to early-stage tech entrepreneurs fixing the world’s hardest issues. Since 2017, the competitors has awarded $3.25 million USD to 78 start-ups from 25 international locations.
We’re excited so that you can study extra in regards to the 2022 successful groups addressing among the greatest challenges we face via technology-based options.
Meet PowerWells, a startup primarily based out of Australia that gained a $75,000 USD Regional First Runner-Up Prize within the Asia Pacific, Japan and China (APJC) area. Their answer addresses the twin world issues of digital waste administration and lack of entry to primary electrical energy.
I sat down with Bradley Clair, one of many co-founders of PowerWells, who’s passionate in regards to the intersection of digital waste recycling and power poverty options. He shared extra about how PowerWells is diverting batteries from landfills and the way they’re serving to folks make the swap from kerosene to wash power.
What downside is your expertise answer attempting to resolve?
Brad: PowerWells is attempting to resolve the twin issues of power poverty and digital waste globally. We need to substitute folks’s reliance on kerosene lanterns, which is horrible for the setting and your well being. A household sitting round a bit of kerosene lamp is equal to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. On the identical time, in Australia, solely about 2 % of lithium-ion batteries are at the moment being recycled or repurposed. Ninety-eight % of these batteries are doubtlessly ending up in landfills. There’s nonetheless a lot life in these discarded batteries which will be reworked into sustainable types of power for individuals who don’t have entry to a conventional electrical grid.
We recycle lithium-ion laptop computer batteries by pulling them aside and testing them. We get the great cells which might be working, after which we use these cells to construct larger packs. We additionally use TV and laptop screens, and we use the Perspex (a kind of acrylic) inside that and put that into the laser cutter to construct the battery enclosure. We primarily created a small-scale photo voltaic system that we will put into locations that don’t have entry to electrical energy so that folks can cost their telephones and have gentle.
At Substation33, the digital waste recycling facility we associate with, we most likely processed over 10 tons of lithium-ion batteries. Of that 10 tons of lithium-ion batteries, about 80 % of these batteries are nonetheless okay to make use of. So, meaning from the 98 % of batteries doubtlessly going into landfills, 80 % of them are usable. And as a substitute of permitting these batteries to finish up in landfills, we’d as effectively use them to supply energy to folks with out entry to electrical energy.
Are you able to clarify how the answer works?
Brad: What normally occurs is we’ll have an entire heap of discarded computer systems right here at Substation. Then we’ll have folks pulling aside the computer systems and checking out the totally different elements. One of many elements is the battery. Our staff will check all of the cells, and a lot of these batteries are much like AA batteries. There are about six of those AA batteries in these laptop computer batteries. So, we’ll have folks testing all these cells, and it’s normally solely one of many cells which might be useless, however you’ll be able to’t use the battery anymore when that occurs.
So, we get the great cells which might be working, after which they check all of the cells that also work to find out if they’re any good. We grade our batteries, and the grade helps us decide the appliance. If it’s a nice battery, we’ll put that into our energy system, and if it’s not a very good battery, we’ll put it into one thing else.
After the batteries have been examined, soldered, and the Perspex enclosure assembled, we solder the circuit board, which is designed right here at Substation33. The good factor in regards to the circuit board is that it reduces the capability of the cell to increase its life, so we don’t absolutely cost or discharge the battery. We’re solely utilizing about 50 % of the battery capability, and in doing so, you prolong the lifetime of the cells. So, it’s fairly totally different from what many different corporations are doing.
We will additionally accumulate and seize information factors like temperature, humidity, and power going out and in of the system, which supplies us perception into how the methods are used and if there are any points. And from a Company Social Duty (CSR) perspective, whoever is investing in sponsoring these methods can see the return on their influence.
After sending them abroad, there’s some remaining wiring, and so they solder the batteries onto the circuit board and put the wrap over methods. They exit to the totally different villages, and the methods are put in in locations that want them. The households that obtain the system pay about 5 {dollars} a month to have entry to electrical energy, and so they pay that off over three years. It finally ends up being about 180 {dollars} to pay for the methods.
What’s revolutionary about the best way you might be fixing the problem? What units your answer aside?
Brad: So far as I’m conscious, I believe we’re one of many solely corporations which might be utilizing digital waste on this approach to supply energy to locations that don’t have entry to electrical energy. Our aim is folks and setting first. We need to make our methods straightforward to fabricate utilizing domestically sourced e-waste, and simple to keep up to make sure the longevity of the system and that we don’t contribute to the issue we try to resolve. We now have additionally included Pay As You Go expertise, to make it simpler for households to repay our methods, and we seize telemetry displayed by way of a web-based dashboard to visually reveal the influence of our methods.
What impressed you to develop this answer?
Brad: Throughout a startup weekend at Substation33, we had been requested to resolve a social or environmental downside. We had a gaggle member from West Papua, Indonesia, and he grew up in a village that didn’t have any entry to electrical energy. His mother and father nonetheless dwell there, and so they don’t have any energy. So, we determined to sort out power poverty, utilizing our expertise working with repurposed batteries. We made a battery, put it right into a paint bucket, hooked a photo voltaic panel as much as it, and put some USB charging ports on it. One of many judges requested us if we wished to go forward and do it, and two weeks later, we raised a couple of thousand {dollars}.
We flew over to Jakarta to check all of the assumptions that we got here up with throughout the startup weekend to see if it was one thing that may be worthwhile. We put in our prototype in a small village with out energy, and as quickly as we put it in there, all the youngsters grabbed their smartphones and tablets that had been fully useless and began charging their units. We examined all our assumptions inside a couple of weeks of developing with the concept. We had been impressed to begin the enterprise as a result of we realized there was a necessity for it, and it was additionally doable.
How will successful a prize within the Cisco World Drawback Solver Problem enable you advance your online business?
Brad: Cisco’s funds will assist propel us ahead; it provides us a possibility to go from pilot undertaking to scale. We need to create extra scalable processes, native manufacturing, coaching and employment alternatives for native groups on the bottom. This prize provides us an ideal platform to achieve out to different organizations and photo voltaic distributors, who would profit from studying repurpose digital waste to supply power to folks in want.
Are you aware what you’ll use the prize cash for particularly?
Brad: Because of COVID, we couldn’t journey abroad to satisfy new companions, and arrange manufacturing in Indonesia. We need to use this cash to start the method with our companions Sumba Sustainable Options, who’re at the moment distributing our methods. We’re additionally fascinated by the rise of electrical automobiles (EV) and wish to put a few of that cash into creating our subsequent product, which includes used EV batteries.
What recommendation do you may have for different social entrepreneurs?
Brad: It’s a troublesome journey. You’ve obtained to be prepared to stay to it, even whenever you aren’t getting quite a bit in return. Nevertheless it’s wonderful when corporations like Cisco again organizations like ours as a result of it means a lot, contemplating the quantity of time and effort you set into it. Preserve testing your entire assumptions, exit into the sector, and keep it up.
Keep tuned for extra articles in our weblog sequence, that includes interviews with each Cisco World Drawback Solver Problem 2022 successful staff!
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