Clearbot

I'm Sidhant - a researcher, inventor and entrepreneur based in Hong Kong. My quest is to leverage technology to solve problems and overcome challenges for humanity.

I am 23 years old and make solutions to solve critical issues with the ocean. I hold a Guinness World Record for building the world's fastest robotic fish and my startup, Clearbot builds ocean trash collecting robot swarms in Hong Kong. I have spoken at TEDx, won the James Dyson award and been a finalist at Hult Prize. Over the past 4 years, I have built ocean trash collecting robot swarms in Indonesia, IOT-based farming systems in Burma, credit scoring AI software in Hong Kong, intelligent underwater cameras to photograph sharks in the Philippines, braille devices for the blind in Japan and online education portals in India, among others. More at sdhntgupta.com

My startup Clearbot is dedicated to helping vulnerable communities and municipalities recover their from their water. Our vision is to leverage cutting edge artificial intelligence & robotics to empower waterside communities to scale their local water cleaning activities. 

Our company Clearbot builds water trash cleaning that are used in shorelines, rivers and canals to remove trash from water autonomously. Our system is 15x cheaper, has 5x more reach and can collect 4x more trash per day compared to the existing methods of boat & net collection. Our robot's cost under 1000 USD and our on-board AI system classified 64 different types of trash and plastic during collection. More at clearbot.dev

We're solving the issue of solid waste recovery in water. Millions of communities across south and south east asia live in trash filled water and suffer from severe gastrointestinal diseases as a result. In places like Indonesia and the Mekong, this is affecting the local tourist and fishing economy and destroying the livelihoods of some of the most venerable communities in the world. 

The problem is that there are no good solutions available to remove trash from the water. These communities typically use paddle boats and fishing nets to remove trash from their own local water. Motorboats cannot be used due to the trash damaging propellers. As a result their collection capability is limited, and solid waste overruns their living area and most of the water they use. A single 3km stretch of the Citarum river in Indonesia would like 4 days to clear with a single paddle boat and net. The communities who live by the water (and are most affected) are usually the poorest and the local municipalities do not have the funds or the tools to be able to control the situation. 

At Clearbot, our vision is to empower local governments and water-communities with cutting-edge-technology so that they can keep trash out of their water. Even with the current global ocean plastic crisis, industry solutions still vary from boats with nets to simply collection by hand.  

Clearbot is a swarm of trash collecting robots that use AI-Vision to detect and collect trash from water bodies. These robots are fully autonomous, solar-powered and work as a team to remove trash. In comparison to any current solution, Clearbot is 15x cheaper, has 5x more reach and removes 2x more trash daily (24x7x365). 

A camera on board detects the trash and the swarm works together to bring it back to a collection area. Our AI can detect and classify 64 different types of water-borne trash and generates crucial data that helps support policy-making around plastic taxes in developing economies. 

Our robots cost under 1000 USD and are designed with the abilities of non-technical users in mind.

The target communities we work with are waterside communities in South East Asia. Most of these waterside communities are quite poor and rely on the water for income and livelihood. They catch fish, drive boats and/or ferry tourists, rent out surfboards etc. We have spent the last 2 years understanding their challenges with the water trash crisis and developing, with them, affordable, scale-able solutions to their problem. We specifically work in Surabaya and Bali, Indonesia with local communities, the mayors, municipal authorities and universities to develop & pilot Clearbot. Clearbot is providing a genuine solution to these groups to keep up with the trash problem and live healthier lives. 

Most of these communities do not have the ability to contain the problem themselves, while governments do not have the capacity to help them. Being at the bottom of the economic ladder, their needs are ignored and the human cost of this is really disturbing. 

About a year back (Jan '19) I heard about Ocean Cleanup's announcement that they will no more be cleaning the pacific garbage patch. At the time, I was an engineer/researcher at the University of Hong Kong and we felt that there had to be a better way to focus on the water trash issue - I've seen how bad it is with my own eyes in my hometown of Bangalore, India and how it affects lives. I've personally been working on ocean tech for 4 years and I was very passionate to put this project together. I secured a small grant and traveled with a small team to Bali, Indonesia to start interviewing local community members, the municipal leaders etc to get a perspective on the problem. That's where we managed to create the first "MVP" of Clearbot. It was made of scrap metal and had toy helicopters to propel it forward, but it proved a point. Back in Hong Kong, we've now spent a year developing the idea with over 25 different stakeholders in the process, constantly helping us get our solution right.

In December 2018, I had organized an expedition to build coral reef mapping robots in the Philippines. During the experience, I saw, for the first time with my own eyes a massive coral reef which was completely dead. As far as the eye could see, it was bleached. It was really chilling site. During the same trip, I also saw how water pollution affects the communities who depend on the water for survival. Communities who have lived at one with rivers and oceans for thousands of years are having to struggle as the trash chokes their livelihood. Small children get diseases when they swim in the water around their houses and adults have to look for alternate jobs because fish populations are dwindling in the polluted water.

I believe that I am at heart an inventor and this experience really shook up my perspective on what I wanted to do. My quest has always been to combine technology and business to create something valuable. This experience helped me focus on what I wanted to work on and soon after, Clearbot was born. 

I have previously led a 30 person team to break an underwater robotics Guinness World Record. I understand how to manage projects/people and deliver on extremely unlikely results.

I have 3 peer reviewed research papers in robotics, imaging. I have the technical background to understand how to make Clearbot work.

I have run VC backed startup before and my parents are entrepreneurs. From a young age I have been exposed to the basics of business. I understand how to fundraise, sell and sustain a solid business.

I am deeply passionate about the ocean. I am deeply passionate about this problem.

I have a massive network in South and South East Asia and leverage this to accelerate my projects.

I have a dedicated team, many of whom have worked with me for 2-3 years. 

I have dedicated & accomplished mentors, who care for my success and can help open doors or guide me when required. 

We landed in Bali, Indonesia after our first Clearbot iteration to test whether our work had been a success. However, after our first test in Bali's rough waves, our robot capsized and we lost all our electronics. This was a massive set back. We had 2 weeks of testing left and our entire robot was reduced to rubbish. On top of that, the team's morale was in tatters and they completely lost their motivation. Eventually, I decided that we would push to re-build our robot, with local materials to the best we could. Just because it wasn't our way, didn't mean there wasn't a way. With the help of our partner communities, we put together a robot frame using bamboo & tyre rubber and replaced the thursters with toy helicopters bought from a toy shop at Denpasar. Initially, you could feel the team was reluctant, even skeptical about this idea. However, we eventually found that the local communities engaged with the bamboo bot more than they ever had with our fancy steel one from Hong Kong. The fact that it was built by them, with local materials gave them a sense of ownership and familiarity. 

At the age of 18, I applied to the Guinness Book of World record to attempt the record for fastest robotic fish in the world. At the time, I had the arrogance to believe that I could pull it off myself and after a year of failure, I realized that having a great team is essential to my success. At 19, I founded the Vayu Project at the University of Hong Kong to set a new Guinness World Record and have been leading it since. After thousands of failures and challenges, overcome, our 30 person team set a Guinness World Record in Jan 2020. After graduation, I've founded 2 venture backed startups and currently employ 10 staff. Over my four year's at University I ran 4 technology expeditions to different parts of SEA where I lead multi-cultural 12 person teams to solve specific local problems. 

Eventually, the truest opinion my leadership ability can be gauged by the decisions of my co-founders, who left 6 figure jobs to co-found a company with me. 

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Clearbot drones are self-navigating, self-charging, robot swarms that use on-board AI classifiers to detect and collect trash as a team. 

The Clearbot system is 15x cheaper, has 5x more reach and removes 2x more trash daily (24x7x365) than even the best solution today. 

Each robot costs under 1000 USD and can collect upto 800Kg of trash in a single day.

We have one of the most cutting edge AI-Vision Trash detection model in the world! We’ve been developing this AI system for the last 1 year. We’ve hacked aerial drone swarm technology and adapted it for the ocean surface We can scale a robot swarm upto 900 units without any change in our architecture. Our robots can waypoint navigate with an accuracy of 2m even in rough sea. Scalable - We can easily add more robots to the swarm: No need of building massive system.

We have an existing theory of change model here: https://docs.google.com/presen... 

Currently, we remove trash for some canals of Surabaya city. The net effect is highest felt by the nearing downstream Kampungs (villages) totalling about ~12000 people.

In 1 year we are hoping to increase this ten-fold (10 more robots) to 120000 people. In 5 years, if we can install in 10-12 midsize cities in SEA we can directly impact 10-20 million people. 

Our vision is to have Clearbot’s in urban canal/river drainage systems and in estuaries, critical environmental zones and high impact locations across South and SouthEast Asia. We have interest from 2 shipping trade/manufacture companies who are interested in supporting our technological growth and helping us expand in Singapore and Thailand, provided we can prove our assumptions in the pilot. We believe that we are close to getting the price of delivery vs product-problem fit to the point where our solution really makes sense for municipalities trying to keep their lakes, rivers and canals clean. In terms of actionable goals, this is what we see: Iterate product-fit & systems/operation during pilot, to success -> Fundraise based on pilot success, to further develop product (6 months) -> Focus on partnerships with existing water trash collection tender awardees & maritime distribution partners in SEA countries -> Grow to 10 locations, 100 robots. Target countries -> Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia. We also want to focus on higher value clients such as yacht marinas, resorts in SEA (who are willing to pay to keep their waterfronts clean). 

Extracting from the limitations of the foreseeable future, our dream remains to make Clearbot ubiquitous in oceans, rivers and canal systems globally. 

Simpified: 

1 year -> 10 robots, 100 tons of trash recovery per month

5 years -> 100 robots, 1000 tons of trash recovery per month

Short term - CoVID has seriously affected our supply chains and ability to operate cross border. We are effectively a deep-tech startup and both VC market and public/government tenders have been hard hit by the current crisis (for the foreseeable future). This means it's harder to get sales and harder to fundraise right now which is bad for cash-flow as well. We are surviving for now, but the crisis is definitely affecting business. 

Market Barriers: To move to different countries, we are going to need new partners/contractors in each country. Ticket sizes are big but long sales funnel (6-9 months) 

Currently, we are doubling down on existing locations (HK, Indonesia) where CoVID is not affecting our operation at much. We are looking for further clients in these regions instead of trying to expand out. On the fundraising side, we are focusing on grant money to sustain. 

For market issues, we have strong partners (trade councils) and distrubutors (maritime equipment distributors) who are already partnering with us to ensure that we can expand without hiccups. 

Supply Chain - currently producing inhouse everything we cannot buy outside (3D print parts for manufacture instead of machine/mould). 

MakerBay Hong Kong: Manufacturing & Design Sponsor

Hong Kong Science & Tech Park: Grant funding, office space and ecosystem

University of Hong Kong: Research Partnership, Office Sponsor

HKTDC: Trade show sponsor & International (Belt & Road) parnerships

Plastic Free Seas: NGO Partner

ASTRI Hong Kong: Research Sponsor

Alibaba Hong Kong: Cloud Sponsor

Microsoft AI for Earth: Cloud Sponsor

Hong Kong Marine Department: Public Tender for Marine Refuse Collection

The Incubation Network: Corporate Connections

Second Muse Singapore: Partnerships 

Institute of Technology, Surabaya: MOU for operations & permits

Municipal Services, Surabaya City: Pilot operation

Full stakeholder list here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V4UTrj9NJLZN84SXtEkPuqKMY7v0J2aTDWzF7JspCIw/edit#slide=id.p 

We have 2 main revenue models. The first is a service model where we charge for marine trash collection service. This is targeted at public sector buyers and existing marine refuse collection agents. 
The second source of revenue is corporate branding/offset programs where we bring in revenue for every kilo of trash that we recover. 

Government Tender: Water solid waste collection tender, harbor cleaning tender, shoreline maintenance tender, marine refuse collection tender, trash survey tender. Value proposition: 24x7 operation, 2-3x lower cost versus diesel boat based operation, 5x more reach/area, 2-4x trash collection rate. 
Marinas, Typhoon Shelters: Value: Novelty, Lower collateral damage risk, higher client satisfaction
Corporate Offset Programs: Higher recovery weight per dollar spent, high social return (branding/story)

Currently will break-even in 12 months. Looking to raise a convertible note VC round in 6 months for 24 months of runway.

Grants: 15000 USD raised

Awards: 7500 USD raised

Founders Debt: 10000 USD raised

We are looking to raise 30000 USD. Ideally, we would like to raise grant money. However, we are open to a convertible note at a pre-money valuation of 2.7M USD. 

Current monthly run-rate is 5000 USD per month. 

The ELEVATE platform could completely change our journey. We have been working on this company full time, unpaid for the last year. Having the financial support and connections of ELEVATE could absolutely change our trajectory accelerate our mission of elevating waterside communities globally through technology. 

1) Funding: Structure to impact capital

2) Legal: Operational issues in cross-border operations

3) Marketing: Storytelling

1) Ocean Cleanup organizations

2) Sustainable Brands

3) Ocean Impact Groups