Kabadiwalla Connect
Industry: Waste Management
Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Website: www.kabadiwallaconnect.in
Cohort: 2017
Kabadiwalla Connect uses the power of ICT to leverage existing informal waste management actors— kabadiwallas (local scrap dealers) and waste-pickers—to help deal with urban waste. Their services include mapping formal and informal waste infrastructure and Hyperlokal, a decentralized neighborhood waste collection service for Indian cities. By integrating often invisibilized workers with the formal waste management sector, Kabadiwalla Connect aims to reduce urban waste that is ending up in landfills and oceans while improving industry standards and compliance.
Kabadiwalla Connect has won several international competitions, including the grand prize of the Global Shapers Community by the World Economic Forum. They were also one of the six winners of the LAUNCH Nordic Innovation Challenge. In 2017, Kabadiwalla Connect was one of the 10 projects of the World Bank-funded Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data.
About the Entrepreneur
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FOUNDER & CEO
Founder and CEO Siddharth Hande is a geospatial analyst by training, and he and his team spent three months mapping kabadiwallas before creating the information system behind Kabadiwalla Connect. Prior to starting Kabadiwalla Connect, he worked as a consultant in some of India’s premier urban policy and research think tanks. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Advanced Zoology and Biotechnology from Loyola College in Chennai, and his Master’s degree in Environment and Sustainability from Monash University.