Lidbot

We are paying too much money collecting waste and recycling. Waste fleets spend too much time checking bins to see if they are full or not. The problem spans further. We also have a large absence of waste and recycling data. We do not know where it comes from, who produced it and its journey from pickup to landfill. Lidbot is a smart sensor that sticks to the top of any waste and recycling bin. It measures its fill level and notifies teams when they are full or emptied. Lidbot also collects critical data on our waste and recycling that can help solve the global waste epidemic. Lidbot's data is sent to IOTA's DLT, enabling it to be immutable, secure and transparent. This framework implements optimizations, traceability and most importantly accountability of our waste. This way, waste producers accelerate their initiatives to lower their waste and avoid heavy taxes.  

Lower your cost of collection

Your waste fleet is visiting every single waste bin in your city to see if it’s full or not. This results in millions of dollars of wasted resources and is also no good for the environment. Let our sensors dynamically route your fleets, saving you those precious resources.

Unanswered Questions

Waste systems are operated by various different companies and organizations. But who does what, why and when, and for how much is often the question.

Analog Waste Audits

Cities today face the challenge of properly reporting on their waste production. Data is collected throughout the year and the city publishes a yearly report on waste and recycling productions. The aim is to reduce the amount of waste a city produces every year and increase the amount of recycling.

The waste space is dark.

For too long parties involved in waste management have relied on contracts and trust. This has ultimately resulted in our global epidemic. Illegal waste trade, dumping, corruption and illegitimate waste audits are far too common in our society and are having negative effects on our planet.

We are helping cities and businesses track, audit and manage their waste more efficiently. 

For business.

“All businesses care about corporate social responsibility and sustainability. Our sensors are able to help them with end of year waste statistics and auditing. The magic is that everybody wins, because they get to save on their bottom line too.”

Increase recycling rates

There are many factors that can effect your recycling rates. To date, we have been limited on tools to monitor and view extensive data about our recycling. With lidbot you can begin to understand everything about your recycling like where, when and how much.

For Smart Cities.

“Cities all over the world are struggling with growing populations and thus more waste. We simply cannot continue with our current methods of waste management and must innovate. The absence of data is the biggest problem and lidbot helps solve that effectively.”

The World’s Smartest & Smallest fill level sensor.

Stick lidbot to any container and start measuring its fill level in real-time. lidbot will notify you when the bin is full or empty. Lidbot also collects critical data on our waste and recycling that can help solve the global waste epidemic. Lidbot's data is sent to IOTA's DLT, enabling it to be immutable, secure and transparent. This framework implements optimizations, traceability and most importantly accountability of our waste.

What is lidbot ?
Distance Sensor

Our sensor has up-to-the-millimeter accuracy and is able to measure solids or liquids.

Plug & Play

Stick lidbot to any container then sit back and watch your data come through.

Connected

lidbot is connected instantly in over 156 countries and uses cellular connectivity.

Get Fully Integrated

Our fully integrated system comes with lidbot sensors, GPS trackers for waste fleets and software integrations from pickup to landfill. This enables you to see your waste system like never before. Tools to make queries on corporate waste production, easily audit and manage your costs.

Lidbot's data is not only precise but also stored on a distributed ledger. Lidbot utilizes IOTA's DLT "The Tangle" which is a distributed database and enables our waste/recycling data to be stored on an immutable, secure database. If we are to collect data about our waste/recycling we should store it somewhere where it cannot be altered or changed. The waste/recycling industry is a fraudulent one, this has created trust issues and has resulted in our current epidemic. Lidbot utilizes this database to ensure all waste data is correct and can exist in a trust-less environment where businesses and cities can be at ease with the validity of their waste data.

Lidbot's sensor uses infrared lasers that give it up to the millimetre accuracy. Compared to other solutions, lidbot can measure waste/recycling bins that are up to four meters in length. Lidbot is also globally connected via a global sim. This makes lidbot extremely scalable. Lidbot also stores its data on a distributed ledger, enabling our collected waste data to be secure and immutable.

In order to fix this global epidemic, we first need to deep dive on the data. However, relevant data on where this waste comes from, the type of waste, who produced it and its journey from pickup to landfill is absent. Lidbot helps solve these issues through with our sensor. Our sensor technology and overall framework enables much needed traceability, accountability and overall optimization in the management of waste.

We are currently finishing up development of our commercially ready sensor to ship in the next two to three months. In one years time, we would have sold over 10,000 sensors globally. Our initially customers suggest we would be in Canada, USA, Germany, England, Taiwan and Singapore. 

This means that in these countries, the residents of major cities will see change in how their waste is dealt with. This may not directly affect their lives but over time these cities will be leaders in waste and recycling management and provide overall better services for their citizens.

In the next year, we would like to finish our sensor development, introduce our smart bin and open an office in Toronto, Canada. We would also like to grow our team from 3 to 20 people. In the next five years, we would like to be the global leaders in providing sensors for the Smart Waste Management industry. With our sensors in over 50 different countries and 100 major cities around the world. Creating the largest database for waste and recycling and being able to implement better urban planning and optimizations for our cities.

Currently, we are completely self-funded. Most of our contracting team is working for free on our project because they see the value in what we are trying to accomplish. Lidbot needs investment capital to help scale it for its fullest potential. We want to move quickly and make positive changes in this industry today.

Lidbot is currently trying to close its seed round. This will hopefully allow us to scale quickly. In order to continue down this path, we have to deliver ROI for our customers and value in our data collection. With each successful integration we have to further define our unit economics and ensure we collect insightful data for internal use to be able to sell our sensors quickly. 

N/A

Lidbot is currently 100% self funded so we only have one registered full-time staff. However, we have over 18 people from all around the world helping us on this mission on our slack team both on a contract basis, equity basis and pro-bono basis. These people are the core of our company and have enabled us to achieve everything we have accomplished so far. They will all be hired as our full-time/part-time staff when we get funding. 

I received an environmental achievement award when I was in high school (2008) from Justin Trudeau. I received the award because I founded a club in our school that helped our school go from a normal school to a Gold Standard Smart School within one year. When I received the award from Justin that day, I knew that for the rest of my life I wanted to continue working towards helping both businesses and cities achieve this same status. For me, this is the most rewarding type of work that I have experienced and it brings me joy everyday. With my combined knowledge of environmental sustainability and international business I am confident that I can lead a team to help deliver this solution to the world. 

We have already begun working with Taipei City Government, Taoyuan City Government, Singapore City Government (envision digital), Festo (german manufacturing),Alba group (german waste company),  SUEZ (global waste company) and Recycle Smart (Canadian waste company). These are the major companies we have begun working with and all of them are on a POC basis. These POC's will help us achieve more success stories and ultimately grow into larger integrations. For instance, the POC with Taipei City Government has already ended and they have gone ahead and asked us for a quote. 

We sell our sensors for $40-60USD depending on the size of the integration. After the sensors have been sold, we charge anywhere from $1-2 per sensor per month [or 12-24 per year flexible payment structure] for access to our analytics platform and connectivity costs (120 countries = one sim card). If our clients have their own software we will happily provide a API of our data stream. 

In order to achieve financial sustainability we have to raise investment capital and combine this with healthy sales revenue. However, because our manufacturing supply chain is still in its infancy we have to ensure that we partner with experienced companies in this field. Our sensors are made in Taiwan and its materials sustainably sourced. So it is important that we partner with companies who have these supply chains ready.

Lidbot is currently facing issues with manufacturing and capital investment. We have solidified our product market fit and have a long list of companies willing to purchase. However, we need help with not only meeting investors but preparing for the investment. At lidbot, we are lacking the expertise in raising capital and are currently learning from our mentor network. Solve MIT would be a great resource for us. 

In regards to Manufacturing, We are hoping to connect with some of SOLVE MIT alumni or corporate partners who can dedicate some resources in helping us set up our supply chain to scale. We are not a mass market product so working with manufacturing partners has been difficult. 

We would like to partner with any government organizations that can help accelerate the deployment of our sensors. We would also like to partner with any organizations which are waste/recycling related. We would also like to partner with organizations who can help accelerate our manufacturing supply chain. 

If we were to win this prize, Lidbot would use the funding to help with the completion of our lidbot sensor. This would mean the funding would go towards obtaining certifications necessary for selling globally. We would also use the money to help secure some additional staff part-time to help us with global sales development.