KOCHI: Oh shit! When one says this, it usually refers to a mistake or blunder. But there is a team who describes it in a positive way: their firm is called The Humble Shit.The word might leave one in splits, but this is not a joke to laugh off. This is a young group’s maiden initiative under their startup Humble Innovations. Their objective: finding solutions for dirty public toilets in urban areas. “It’s high time we discuss this in the open. That is the reason we titled the initiative as Humble Shit to give an image of a young forward-thinking group who are working for the betterment of the environment,” said co-founder Samir Dayal Singh, a Bihar native residing in Kochi since last five years.
Samir said that their pilot project, which began at Amrita Hospital from May 7, has been receiving a terrific response. “We have instilled a Toilet Monitoring System near the wash basin of four bathrooms located at different places within the hospital with three response buttons (Good, Average and Bad) and people give their ratings after using the bathroom,” said Samir. He mentioned that the other day they received negative feedback for a bathroom and their team immediately informed the authorities. “Within two hours, a good rating was recorded once the toilet was cleaned,” he said.
Samir said that they take a note of the feedback they receive through the database Toiletmonitor.in, which provides the ratings along with the location. He said they are also planning to come up with various posters to influence the users to give ratings. They also maintain a website www.humbleshit.com where the team communicates with people from various strata to discuss their experiences of using public toilets and asks for ideas and suggestions.
Samir, an alumnus of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) thought of this initiative when his mother collapsed in a public toilet in Bihar in 2016. For Humble Shit, Samir is being supported by the Kerala Startup Mission and CUSAT.
Samir said that as the toilet monitoring system was their entry into the market, they will slowly look out for other methods to fulfil their objective. He noted that theywant to provide tech solutions and is currently doing a research on it“My team and I alone cannot solve the problem, so the people should also take it up but we will do our best through our project,” he said.