BENGALURU: It was cold inside the Skur13 hall in Oslo, Norway, on the evening of October 10. A group of 35 entrepreneurs, from UK, USA, Kenya, Botswana and India, stood on the stage. Among them was the Bengaluru-based entrepreneur Nivedha RM. The 24-year-old is the founder of the Trashbot machine, which can automatically separate bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste.
Moments later, the Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry, Torbjørn Røe, took to stage to announce Nivedha’s name as the winner of the 2019 Impact Maker Awards, a global competition with a prize of `40 lakh for entrepreneurs who can provide unconventional solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems. Nivedha had never expected to get the award. The earlier winners were mostly Europeans and Americans. “This was the first time an Indian was winning,” she said.
When asked on stage about what she would do with the money, Nivedha said, “Each of these digits will impact a thousand lives each. We can create an end-to-end waste management system which includes segregation and recycling. We can prevent 300 tonnes of waste going to a landfill every month through the use of Trashbot.” Incidentally, the recycled waste from the Trashbot can be used to make biogas and plywood-type boards.
The Impact Maker Awards has been instituted by the Norway-based group Xynteo, and consists of major companies like Unilever, Mastercard, General Electric and Tatas. These firms are looking for innovative solutions for the world’s problems. And through a vote of the 500 plus delegates in the hall, which consisted of people like the CEO of Ikea Jesper Brodin and the co-founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales, they voted for TrashCon as having made the most impact.
Xynteo has also extended support to Nivedha to help her scale up the production. “We are making 10 machines a month. Now they will help us to make 100 machines and later there will be a global outreach,” she said. A chemical engineer who graduated from the Rashtreeya Vidyalaya College of Engineering, she added, “I have found my life’s purpose. I want to create a world where there is no trash anywhere.”