CONVERTING BIOWASTE TO CLEAN ENERGY

The inversaive aquatic weed has covered over 30% of the fresh water Lake Victoria. Lack of an organised system of aquatic weed harvesting has resulted into undesirable water surface cover, difficulty of beach access for local fishermen, crude dumping of aquatic waste leading to heaps along the lake shores where clean-up is left mostly to natural water waves. In addition, there is massive and rapid decline in food security. Demand for organic fertilizers is sky rocketing to mitigate food insecurity. Bentos Energy is a manufacturing business involved in recycling waste biomass into affordable, clean, smokeless charcoal briquettes. The opportunity was born out of the fact that there is huge demand for affordable clean green energy and organic waste is hugely abundant and readily available.

Recycling the invasive water hyacinth into a soil conditioner has opened beaches while farmers have a increased food security and  with aclearlyfined job as a farmer. 

Bentos Energy addresses the following challenges

• Affordable clean Energy -Every year 15,000 Kenyans dies from respiratory related diseases numbers higher than Malaria, HIV and Aids
• Waste management -Nairobi generates 30 metric tones
• Reduce deforestation because Kenya currently only have 7.2% yest the reccomended UN bench mark is 10%
• Youth and women unemployment -60% of youth in Kenya are unemployed
• Food Security -Kenya is 35 % food insecure because  40% of the country is semi arid and farmers can now put money in their pockets because their income has increased.

Our solution recycles waste biomass into clean affordable charcoal briquetts.

It has created massive employment along the value chain while also affording users clean source of energy especially the house hold consumers. Users of the charcoal briquetts have reduced incidents of respiratory illnesses because the charcoal briquetts are smokeless. Members of the project have all been enrolled with the National Insurance Health Fund which provides basic medical cover to all members of their families.Members have been trained on recycling skills as an effort to transfere skills and technolody.Our forests have been conserved because there is an alternative to wood fuel anthis is more cost effective and smokeless while it burns three times longer. 

The innovation is a process of recycling biomass from dumpsites and harvested water hyacinth that is collected from the lake cover and mixed with paper sludge from industries and charred waste biomass to form a unique resin that is extruded into smokeless charcoal briquettes. The results are practically efficient, smokeless and a cheaper source of energy with numerous advantages.

For organic fertilizer, shreded water hyacinth is added to ruched bones witha secret enzyme and gypsum to make fertilizer.Out put increases tw0-three fold. 

This project serves fisher men along the shores of Lake Victoria, refugees in norther Kenya, farmers in western Kenya and families living near the dumpsite in Nairobi. This project will have the following impact;

Eutrophication, ammonia and phosphorus emissions are mitigated during the process of collection and sorting of organic waste reduces disease incidents in habitations bordering dumpsites.   .

Social impacts result from the procurement and production steps of the value chain and primarily target towards improvement of livelihoods of organic waste collectors.  . 

By creating a sustainable solution to the growing waste menace, the initiative will provide an alternative to artificial fertilizers while offering job opportunities. Bentos energy will create employment for individuals at the initial stages of the value chain, mostly youth and women, who collect and sort organic waste for reselling.

Bentos Energy products are manufactured from aquatic biomass thus reducing undesired aquatic weed on the lake cover. This will help reduce water contamination and loss of aquatic life in line with its SDGs commitments. In the first year, over 430 tons of water hyacinth will be recycled. This will translate to 4150 mature trees; this is equivalent to 161.85 tons of CO2 saved from the environment.

The main challenge is that invasive aquatic weed has covered over 30% of the fresh water Lake Victoria . Lack of an organised waste management system  has resulted into undesirable water surface cover, difficulty of beach access navigation for local fishermen, crude dumping of aquatic waste . clean-up is left mostly to natural water waves. Bentos Energy's  manufacturing business involved in recycling waste biomass into affordable, clean, smokeless charcoal briquettes. There is huge demand for affordable clean green energy and organic waste is hugely abundant and readily available.

The fertilizer made from water hycinth has trippled farmer harvest .

Aquatic weed has covered over 30% of the fresh water Lake Victoria. Lack of an organised system of aquatic weed harvesting has resulted into undesirable water surface cover, difficulty of beach access for local fishermen, crude dumping of aquatic waste leading to heaps along the lake shores where clean-up is left mostly to natural water waves. In addition, there is massive and rapid decline in food security. Demand for organic fertilizers is sky rocketing to mitigate food insecurity. Bentos Energy is a manufacturing business involved in recycling waste biomass into affordable, clean, smokeless charcoal briquettes. The opportunity was born out of the fact that there is huge demand for affordable clean green energy and organic waste is hugely abundant and readily available.Our fuel competes fire wood, wood charcoal, electricty and gas. The fertilizer competes chemical fertilizer

The innovation is a process of recycling biomass from dumpsites and harvested water hyacinth that is collected from the lake cover and mixed with paper sludge from industries with  charred waste biomass to form a unique resin that is extruded into smokeless charcoal briquettes. The results are practically efficient, smokeless and a cheaper source of energy with numerous advantages.

Our product addresses the following challenges

• Affordable clean Energy -Every year 15,000 Kenyans dies from respiratory related diseases numbers higher than Malaria, HIV and Aids
• Waste management -Nairobi generates 30 metric tones
• Reduce deforestation
• Youth and women unemployment
• Food Security

Our innovation comprises three steps:

• Recieve incentives
• Generate Ideas
• Function creation processes

Our Briquettes  solution is powered electromechanically in the following steps:

• Waste biomas is harvested manually and mechanically using a tractor
• The harvested biomass is then charred mechanically in a kiln 
• The charred biomass is then milled mechanically for finness
• The milled chardust isthen mixed mechanically using a mixer to form resin
• The resin is then extruded mechanically into cilindrical shapes to form briquetts.
• The briquetts are then dried lectrically until they dry.
• The dried briquetts are then packaged mechanicall and then stacked ready for sale.

The fertilizer manufacuring process is done as follows:

• Invasive aquatic weed is harvested mechanically
• The harvested weed is shredded using a shredder mechanically
• Waste nones are collected and mechanically crushed into powder
• Gypsum is also cruched mechanically with waste wheat flour or a  starch binder is added
• All the crushed material is then mixed in a ribon mixer then all is extruded into pellets which are then dried in an oven as pellets to be packed into sacks of 25-50kgs for sale.

Training Consultancy  on Technilogy Transfer

Members of Self Help Groups and Community Based Organzations are gathered together at designated places for training using equipment for broadcast which include :

• Laptops
• Broad-Caste Speakers
• Microphones
• Projectors 
• Training Personel

M TAKA Digital Software 

• It has a data base of all waste generators and their locations where the raw material is located through a GPIS software.
• It states what quantity is available and at what price besides telling us what type of waste is available

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfBlWemsJp8&t=88s

Extrusion is a comonly used technology in the industrial briquetts industry.

It is a mechanical process that involves pressing milled char dust into an extruder which forces the wet mixture into a barrel to produce cylinderical shaped briquettes  which are then dried in sunlight or oven dried.

This is a common practice that is mechanical process however  there are others that carry out the process manually  which is rather slow.

This is a common practice used for making house hold by self help groups.

We use the Kottlers Model of change which has eight phases:

This is a systematic approach to achieving successful sustainable change down the process into eight phases.It involves:

• Establishing  a sense of urgency- Research Market, Analyze competition,identify and discuss(potential ) crisis and oprtunities.
• Create a Coalation- For a powerful and influential group to lead the charge ,allign this guiding coalation to work like ateam.
• Develop a clear vision -Create a vision to direct the change effort ,develop strategies to realize the vision
• Share the Vision- Use every possible way to communicate the new vision and strategies .Let guiding coalation members be role models to the rest of the organization.
• Empower People to Clear obstacles - Get rid od obstacles, change structures and systems that obstruct the change efforts , encourage risk taking and none traditional ideas activities and actions,
• Secure short term Wins-Plan for visible performance improvements ,create and declear the wins ,visibly recorgnize and reward those who made the wins possible.
• Consolidate and Keep Moving -Build on growing creadibility to gradually change all systems, structures and policies that dont fit in the vision, hire , promote and develope successful changers ,reinvigorate the change process with new projects things and change agents .
• Anchor-improve performance through customer and productivity , orientation and more effective leadership and management

Currently the project has directly employed in the factory is 13

There are collectors from the beaches, lake shores and dumpsite tataling 2000 people. In total we have 30 SHGs and CBO's

Another group of  people involved are  dealers and distributors who move the products to the end users and these total 80.

Recently the government of Kenya banned wood charcoal movements and cutting down of forest trees and this is part of why there has been an unprecedented rise.We expect this number tto go up 10 fold. We expect to serve over 5,000 people in atleast 5 counties like Somalia,South Sudan, Tanzania, Congo and Burundi.Those who will be directly affected are those currently using wood charcoal and fire wood as fuel.

In the next year and within the next five years :

We expect to join a supportive community of peers, funders, and experts to help advance our  innovative work  by  recycling biowaste and hooking through Solve's nine-month program;

• Receive mentorship and strategic advice from Solve and MIT networks;
• Receive access to more than $1.7 million in prize funding for the 2020 Challenges.

Our goal  is to  partner with Solve who broker commitments of over $25 million in funding for Solver teams and entrepreneurs, in addition to in-kind support such as mentorship, technical expertise, media and conference exposure, and business and entrepreneurship training.

We expect to expand our production line from the current domestic briquettes to industrial briquettes.  The government of kenya has banned cutting of trees and movement of wood charcoal from specific counties.All tea factories use will turn to using briquettes as their main source of energy because wood fuel has been banned by the government. This gives us a golden opportunity to expand our line of broducts .On the fertilizer line we expect to increase our out put . The need to aggresively raise funds towards the investment goes with out say.

The funds will see the business invest in an industrial line like a driers, hydraulic industrial press , skilled personnel, mechanical harvesters all focued towards increasing output. This will call for a minimum investment of $300,000 preferably in grants because the business is still very young but with a big potential to grow.   

Adequte funding is a main challenge and barrier

Products which are mainly briquetts and fertilizer seem to be having a growing demand because there is limited competion from substitutes. 

The cost of power and frequent interruption is another challenging barrier. To get accross this , there is need to invest in diese powered generators  or solar to substitute power supply during interuptions.

Technical automation will be a challenge because of inadequate human resource skills available and automation technology

North eastern counties are culturally limited in allowing women to work how ever campaigns are underway on sensitizing the communities to allow women to freely participate in employent. We ahve also identified the following list as barriers in our current operations.

• Business model that adequately addresses the whole ecosystem
• Solution technology which are modern and automated
• Product/service distribution where logistics is fully intergrated in the market 
• Funding and revenue model which satisfies current inadequecies and existing gaps.
• Talent recruitment of highly skilled middle magament cadreas
• Board members or advisors who will help us break down policies suitatble for such an entity.
• Legal or regulatory matters to be intrepretaed locally and internationally to speed up and open relationships and partnerships
• Monitoring and evaluation estabish what variations exist between our current position and anticipated position
• Marketing, media, and exposure  that should be very aggressive to create product awareness locally and regionally.

Increasing our production will be overcome by aggressively raising funds to aquire more equipment and introduce automation. Part of the $300,000 targeted to be raised is intended to mainly acqure more  equipment to upgrade our capacity.

Technical skilled labour required  will be trained achieved through training and partnerships with more experienced countries like india and China.

Mentorship programs with the Solve team will be strengthened and possibly exchange programs will be agreed upon to have knowledge exchange.

Civil education sensitizing youth on employment and volunteering programs that facilitate talent hunting . 

N/A

Full Time staff :           six

Part Time Staff :          Six

Contractors :               Three hundred members through CBO's and Self Help                                     Groups as waste harvesters

The team is professionally trained in their various specialities ans stipulated below. Our training backgrounds, experience , net tworks linkages 

• Eng. Symphrose Ochieng M.Sc., MBA – an accomplished electrical engineer with over 10 years and an accomplished social entrepreneur.
• Ishmael Hezekiah – BBM, ACCA-in charge of financial operations with 7 years’ experience
• Robert Nyasuna- B.Com, Experienced marketer and lead business development with over 10 years’ experience

The information on the challenge we are addressing,Relationship and networks at our disposal ,Human Resources we work with, Assets avialable and capital  at our dispsal will puts us in  good  positiones to deliver this solution

Entreprenuership For Impact ( E4Impact Foundation )-Funding and mentoring

Tangaza University College- Training and Funding

University of Nairobi ( Wangari Maathai Institute if Peace ans Environment)-Research and attachment to students

Growth Africa Capital- Funding and training

World Vision- Funding and Training of both harvesters and factory workers

Nairobi Innovation Challenge- Funding

Sinapis Academy- Funding and Training

American Society of mechanical Engineers (ASME)- Funding Grants

savana Accelrator- Training and investment advisors

Arya samaj- Waste Sipply

Nairobi Residents Association- Waste Supply

Waste Concern- Waste and material Supply

Alara Self Help Group- material and HR Resource 

Continental Renewable Energy Ltd Technical Suport

A.J.Oscar& Co.Ltd Funding

African Solutions Franchisees

Material is sourced from the Self Help Groups and Community Based Organizations collect waste from the dumpsites, land ,fills  and houe holds and farms where they are charred then milled. The milled dust is then supplied to the factory in Komarok eher it is  processed into charcoal briquettes which is then dried and sold to both dealers , and consumers and house houlds for cash. Most of these buyers are consumers of clean affordable energy source.

For now a cpital injection of $ 300,000 investment will make the business stable. This should take the form of both the below listed capital forms subject to negotiations. Some of the existing instruments are as follows:

• Sale of Briquettes
• Sale of Machinery
• Equity Investment from funds
• Grants from impact investors
• Venture Capital Investors

We are applying to Solve the following challenges :

• We want to join a supportive community of peers, funders, and experts to help advance our  innovative work  of recycling Bio- Mass  while addressing the existing clean fuel and unemployment challenge through Solve's nine-month program;
• We intend to receive mentorship and strategic advice from Solve and MIT networks;
• We desire to attend Solve at MIT, be part of their  annual flagship event in May; and receive access to more than $1.7 million in prize funding for the 2020 Challenges.

We are cognisant that in the last three years, with support of their partners, Solve has brokered commitments of over $25 million in funding for Solver teams and entrepreneurs, in addition to in-kind support such as mentorship, technical expertise, media and conference exposure, and business and entrepreneurship training which we dearly need.

Revise our Business model to  will revamp our way of doing business
Up  Grade our Solution technology through automation
Improve quality of our Product though outomation /service distribution with a  rather more intergrated logistic framework.
Explore available Funding and build a robust  revenue model to attain sustainability.
Hunt and explore potential Talent and  recruite  the best in the industry
Appoint Board members or advisors to develope more relevant policiers and intal stronger governance structures into existence .
Shop for Legal or regulatory matters servives that are holistic and robust in line with our intented franchasing and expansion plans.
instill Monitoring and evaluation frame works to note variations.
Aggressivley  carry out Marketing programs , media campaigns  and exposure of the existing products  to with the intention of scalling up product knowledge and awarness

We request SOLVE to support us in partnering with international organizations and NGO's currently serving in refugee camps  like USAID-This organization has a wide presence in East Africa with a strong catalytic muscle on donor agency development in the region.

GIZ-GIZ supports very many farmers whose raw material are our main source of material.

EU-European Union- They are development catalytic agencies in the region

SIDA- They support projects touching on climate change which we are part of  in recycling biowaste to save our forests

CIDA- Catalytic donor agency that supports recycling projects

DFID-

Lutheran Relief Foundation - This organization plays a key roll in supporting lively hood projects  in refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma and Somalia.

ICRC/ IFRC

DANIDA- Good partners in supporting recycling projects 

Bill and Mellinda Gates - They supprt projects that sustain livelihood

Rockerfella Foundation -They support transformation programs like Bentos Energy Ltd

UNEP - Support conservation and enevironment projects that mitigate climate change

Zayed Foundation- They support clean renewable energy projects

NET FUND They support green parojects

Danish refugee Council- Livelihood within refugee camps

Norwegian Refugee Council support refugee camps

FAO- support food security projects

UNDP -Support development and entrerprenural projects

UNHCR- Support refugees  from war torn counctries like Somalia

We qualify for the Andan prize  because we partnered with Norwegian Refugee Council in 2016 and 2017 to fabricate , supply and train refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma on the use of charcoal briquettes. It was a successful project that saw many refugee house holds and mainly youth and women adopt to using briquettes and energy saving cook stoves with in the camp. This reduced the need to cut trees for fire wodd a while curbing deforestration in the semi aris region in Kakuma and Dadaab. Ther have been a reduction of respiratory illness infection due to the the drastic change introduced and therefore we deserve the  Andan Prize  as partners who facilitated the Refugee inclusion to advance our project.

Women constitute one third  of  of our work force and many of the recipeints of our services at the refugee camps were women.

We train women on machine operation , charring biowaste and customer service at product outlets and distribution . This has seen them empowered interms of skills aquisition and therfore we deserve the innovatio  for Women Prize Avancement. As a women , am equally passionate  about empowering women becauss as a common say goes" Empower The Woman and You Empower The Whole Village".   

We would you like to be considered for The GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship because our solutions  enable working-age adults to build the skills and resources they need to access well-paying jobs.

Because we are   changing a job  marketplace  by providing training in metal work fabrication, welding and machine operation at our production plant , we should be  eligible for the GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

Looking at the 300 workforce ( Wasteprenuers ) along our value chain from waste harvesting to product distribution ,it is a deserving prize to recorgnize our contribution to the society.

With our M- TAKA digital platform in place  to link waste generators to its consumers like recyclers like bentos Energy , the Gulbenkian Foundation Prize Award is deserved   because we have offerd a digital  solutions that has increased  literacy rates among adults and that it has  advanced  inclusive economic growth through upskilling and greater digital literacy.

This is because it is used accross board by collectors and recyclers  as a convenient tool of trade . At initial stages we trained them on skills of segregation, charring and recycling making them knowlegable on a social skill necessary to conserve the environment.

At Bentos Energy Ltd The AI for Humanity Prize is  well deserved because we offer  solutions that are already using strong data science, artificial intelligence, digital platform  machine learning to benefit humanity, and to solutions  embrace  technologies and  plan to do so to amplify our impact in the future

Our MTAKA platform   is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and our global community through a linking digital platform that was developed as a result of  research and information technology