MR WASTE

Behind every successful application as a team of dedicated developers , here at Team Alpha  369, we are no different.

Abu M Fuad, is a passionate electrical engineer, Founder and CEO of Team Alpha 369 and a visionary researcher with the ambition of supporting the compatriots of our country.

Fahmida Ahmed Hridy, is a hardworking and ambitious developer and researcher and great passionate for graphics design and animation. 

Md.Ehsanul Haque Fahad, is an enthusiast android developer with a high passion for solving problems. 

Shaugat ur Rahman, is a Web Designer and WordPress developer and has experience of 6 months internship as a front end developer at Coderstrust.

The use of plastic items for the COVID 19 epidemic has been increased and people are dumping garbage everywhere due to its negligence. The people who live near beaches used to throw masks and other items directly to sea water. As a result, the environment is polluting and reducing human traffic in the protected areas and other forms of wilderness areas. In this situation we, Team Alpha 369, find a solution that our project, MR.WASTE will collect all these used material that is going to pollute sea water. We will purchase those items from consumers and give it to the waste management companies. By this project we can save the environment and create a workplace for the lower income people.

The COVID-19 crisis has a disproportionate impact on the poor,through job loss,rising prices,and disruptions in services. Due to global shocks such as COVID-19 and because it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach those remaining in extreme poverty,who often live in fragile countries and remote areas,poverty reduction may not be fast enough to reach the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. According to the World Bank most recent estimates, of the 736 million people living in extreme poverty worldwide,half live in just 5 countries including Bangladesh. In Bangladesh,more than 80 per cent of rural and low income population experienced a decrease in earnings due to COVID 19 pandemic,according to a survey. There is an alarming lack of alternate sources of income in the communities we are working in and globally. So,we are trying to solve the poverty issue by creating a workplace for lower income people. However,we also have a number of problems in the surrounding environment which are contributing to our project that we need to address,for example,discarded masks can be the reason for change in the behavior of land and marine life,which can increase the growth of invasive species and reduce human traffic in local protected natural environments. 

Our project is an app, MR.WASTE, which was developed by using NASA’s data. To avoid poverty and some environmental difficulties, we have come up with a new solution. When your basket is full of the used masks and other items contact us through this app, ‘MR.WASTE’. After using your masks and other items you have to store it in your house and sign up in our app , MR.WASTE, as a consumer. It will find your location and you have to select the waste that you want to give us. Then , the consumer will get money as his list. Using augmented reality , one can scan his items. After scanning items, a notification will go to the delivery person through this app. MR.WASTE will observe the condition of your location by using NASA’s data and then reach your house to collect it. He will take it away to the waste management company. They will give some money as their raw materials. On the other hand, the waste management companies can also contact us by signing up through our website. Here is the link of a video of our project, hopefully, those will help to understand the project more.

We are working and directly meaningfully improving the lives of  the lower class people who are typified by poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. People of this class, few of whom have finished high school, suffer from lack of medical care, adequate housing and food, decent clothing, safety, and vocational training. We interacted with them to get a better understanding of the needs they are being deprived of. It has been possible for us to work with a non profit organization for over a year. This gives us the opportunity to visit them every week and learn about their lives. They are mostly hard working people , some of them are not able to earn a decent income and some of them are not able to meet with their due rights. So we take this step to give them a better environment from these conditions. With this they will find a place to earn money with which they can meet the expenses of their family. Besides these they are getting some additional opportunities from us, like, we will arrange their travel during work hours and give them ideas about our app so that they can have better communication with customers.

Everything around the world is now locked down for covid 19.  In the meanwhile some people have to go out for livelihood. Despite being an engineer, I have a different kind of love for the environment because I love to travel. Most of the time,before I go anywhere in the country, I have read a variety of articles to gather an idea about that place or how much I can adapt to the adverse conditions. Since it is now locked down, I had passed my time to go after the article about those places as it would be very inappropriate to go somewhere. Suddenly, from an article, I see that our environment is being polluted in various ways in the midst of this lock down, which is affecting people and other animals. A research by Gary Stokes, founder of Oceanasia.Org, helps to find out why pollution rates are rising so much during lock down in uninhabited environments. To avoid this problem, we,the 4 members of Team Alpha 396,decided to create an app and a website that will save people from polluted environments and at the same time lower income people will determine their livelihood and hopefully it will be implemented. 

Due to this COVID-19,all the areas have been closed globally. We all think that the low appearance of humans causes no sign of harm for nature.But we don't even know how much we pollute our environment sitting at home.Now people mostly used the medical items for their protection.After using these they throw it to the ground or dustbin. As a result,medical waste such as contaminated masks,gloves,used or expired medications,and other items can easily be mixed with domestic waste. These do not disappear but rather slowly break down into micro plastic which enters the food chain with devastating effect by going to the ocean and destroying the soil. From an online article by Gary Stokes,the founder of OceansAsia.org,found a large number of masks on Soko Island motivated us to pursue this work. The safe management of domestic waste could be critical during this emergency. However,they should be treated as hazardous waste and disposed of separately. Furthermore,these types of waste must be collected by specialized municipal operators or waste management operators (UN,2020). So we want these medical items to be given separately to the waste management company. To make this task easier we create our app that will easily reach those companies. 

We have four members each from different universities participating in this project. Abu M Fuad is a second year student of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology. He is currently working in robotics in Bangladesh. He is the Founder and CEO of three companies that will help people reach out and learn more about robotics: Ektukhani Robotics (2019), Optimus Prime MLT (2018) and Team Alpha 369 (2019). He also worked as a Global Volunteer in the AIESEC_UN project in 2019. Fahmida Ahmed Hridy is a second year student of Computer Science and Engineering at BRAC University. She is mainly working on graphics design and animation. She was the Campus Ambassador of TechFest, IIt Bombay(2019) and worked as a UNICEF Global Volunteer (2019). She is currently working as a researcher at UNESCO's Online Global Volunteers. Md Ehsanul Haque Fahad is a fourth year student of Industrial and Production Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. He is working with a tech associate called 10 Minute School as an app developer. He was the developer of Unilever Bangladesh E-Training Apps and Unilever Bangladesh 3D Model Apps. Shaugat Ur Rahman is a first year student in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology. He works as a web developer. He did an internship of 6 months at CodersTrust as a front end developer. All of our experiences will help us improve our project and we are well positioned to deliver this. 

Due to the current COVID 19,the general population have all taken the precaution to wear surgical masks. When we suddenly have a population of 7.8 billion people wearing one to two masks per day the amount of trash generated is going to be substantial. Those surgical masks are simply a strip of cloth around the faces, today manufactured using  non-woven fabrics made from plastics like polypropylene, that does not disappear but rather slowly breaks down into micro plastic which enters food chains with devastating effect. Some environmental groups have found the masks in the countryside or the sea , damaging the environment. These activities have said the masks have intensified the pollution problem world wide. There can be a reduction in erosion and other forms of land degradation or a change in water quality.  Volumes of non recyclable waste have risen,  maintenance and monitoring of natural ecosystems have been temporarily halted, and tourism activity to natural areas has ceased. MR.WASTE will pick those wastes and give to the waste management companies for recycling, those will protect the environment from the damage of land and marine life, will increase human traffic in the protected areas and decrease invasive species in wildlife. 

Team Alpha 369 has excellent communication skills , enabling us to effectively communicate with a wide range of people. We have been working for 1 year and have won many awards in various national and international competitions. Abu M Fuad demonstrates good leadership skills as Mr.Waste's project manager. He has done five project events that make people's workflows easier and those are the Cranial Control Wheelchair (2017) which facilitates the movement of disabled people, Doctor Assistant(2019), Electro Chair(2019), Poultry Inhabitants Management(2019), BALA- a device for Pregnant Women(2020). He has received various awards for these projects. He has been the champion, 1st runner up and 2nd runner up in the hardware sector many times. He became the 2nd runner-up in the Hult Prize at his university in 2018. He has also received many special prizes nationally and internationally. In addition to these, he also worked as a facilitator and researcher. He is able to make good decisions in support of his strategy delivery, and solve problems. With a positive attitude, problems can become opportunities and learning experiences, and he can gain much information from a problem addressed. 

Innovation is often viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. Such innovation takes place through the provision of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies or business models that are made available to markets, governments and society. Our work is different from others because we will mainly work for lower income people, make them a source of income and at the same time will look after their opportunities. We will also work to protect the environment. In places where there is usually human traffic, the movement of invasive species for garbage is increasing and the survival of the animals living in the sea is becoming miserable. So we will make sure that the local natural environment is not harmed . Moreover, our country will be more developed through this technology based project.

The waste material project can bring some changes in our society. We think this will be possible through our organization Mr.Waste. Our work will be by app. Our activity will initially be to train a group of lower income people by us, members of Team Alpha 369, about the app and how the organization works. It will give a clear idea about their work. They will deliver the service accordingly.  People will store their used masks and more plastic materials in the house and call the delivery man to take them away. They will take them to a contacted waste management company to sell.This will increase social interaction. Social skills will improve. Antisocial behavior will decrease. They will find a place for their work from where they can earn continuous income. This will make their life more prosperous than before. In addition to these, they will also have access to some basic education such as health education, technology and business. And they will get all these training from us. In addition to this short term and medium term outcome, we are also hoping for a long term outcome. Since everything is stagnant due to the epidemic in 2020, we are trying to build some virtual facilities. This project will probably help reduce poverty in the long term. We interviewed lower income people to get feedback. The bottom line was that no one knows exactly when they will be able to return to their former life. They are facing daily problems such as not being able to rent a house, cannot buy anything, not being able to raise money for treatment, etc. They said that if our project is implemented, it will create a source of income for them. When we asked how long it will work, they replied that if the hours are fixed, it will be an advantage. So we decided that they would work 8 hours a day during which they would collect waste materials and sell them to waste management companies. We hope this theory of change can have an impact on humanity.

Currently we have 4 members running the Mr.Waste project from four different positions. Among them the project manager who will take care of the entire project. Basically this post is important because it acts as a bridge between the delivery team and client or business. Under Project Manager, there are three other members : Project Coordinator, Process Consultant and Delivery Manager. The project coordinator will act as project sponsor and executive sponsor for budget monitoring, control spending, as well as overseeing any coordination issues. It is also the responsibility of the project coordinator to ensure that project teams spread globally and operate in different zones. The role of the expert Project Consultant is related to the process to be followed internally. He will also teach project delivery knowledge to the delivery team as well as project improvements to increase productivity and maximize business value. Moreover, managing additional products is also the work of this post. Primarily  the job of the delivery manager is to monitor whether the products are being delivered on time and whether it is improved. This post manages the delivery team and provides the people for the delivery team. Their job is also to approve deliverables, to make policy based decisions. We plan to increase tasks in future. Executive Sponsor, Project Sponsor, People Manager, Steering Committee, Vendors will be more convenient to work in these posts. So we hope to increase the scope to 40 members in one year and 200 members in the next five years.

The goal of the project is to achieve the desired result (performance goal) by allocating a certain amount of resources (resource goal) to a certain amount of time (time goal). It is important to improve the productivity and effectiveness of the project over time. When setting work goals, the things we will focus on are the reasons behind poor performance and improvement for the work field. At the same time we will try our best to improve the communication and cooperation of the team. We will meet the targets within the next year. Staff requirements will be planned to make the project effective. Before making a detailed nomination about the project team, the project manager must verify the availability of the potential team. Infrastructural requirements such as higher impact products, product machines must be specified to make the project effective. We are currently working not only on masks but also on a wide range of plastic materials in the next five years. We can further enhance our role by creating new technological and collaborative solutions to ensure long-term performance, working with top management to set new goals for our team, performing competitive research, and revising old performance reports to create new performance strategies. We hope to reach our goal in the next five years.

Every task has some obstacles. But this kind of obstruction during this epidemic,may cause our work to slow down. Firstly,the market barriers are much higher,recycling of waste materials is decreasing day by day. These are no longer being picked up for recycling,but are becoming more harmful to human health, including the environment. There is also economic loss for market barriers. In addition to market barriers,we also have to deal with legal barriers. Since there are only a few factories open, we have to work with them,but it will be a little difficult for us and the working hours will increase. We may have to struggle to get approval from the government. Secondly,the communication and cultural gap between the people we are going to work with is huge. Because they do not know what to do in any situation or how to deal with the customer. So we have to teach them these things too. Moreover, there are different types of people in each region, different from their culture and others. Thirdly,the biggest barrier in our project is the technical barrier. We have taken a lot of steps to make our project accessible to all but they are not reaching out to the poor as they have little knowledge about technology,so the task is getting more difficult for us. These barriers may come in the middle of our work in the next year or next five years but we will try to reach our goal by gradually overcoming them.

As there are a number of barriers in every work, there are also systems to overcome them. We also have a plan to overcome the above barriers. In order to overcome the barriers of the market within next year, we will sell our products by contacting the factories that are open. Before selling products, Process Consultant will train those who will work and will also take care of how to increase productivity including project improvements. Moreover, since we are working with the Lower People, they each come from different regions and cultures. It is difficult to work with them because time management varies a lot. So in order to overcome these obstacles, we will train them in time management and technology on our own initiative so that they understand the value of our work and do the work and be able to communicate with any class of people or bargain for products. By doing this we will be able to overcome the technological barriers and also the time management will be fine. If there is any kind of cultural gap in it, we will be able to overcome that obstacle. Posters will be arranged to overcome the obstacles of project sponsors so that the news of the work reaches the poor. We will work as a department to overcome these obstacles so that it is easier for us. We hope we can overcome these obstacles and achieve our goals.

Our business model is an employment model that provides employment and job training to clients and sells products or services in the open market. We will start the business with a donation of 40,000 taka or USD 481.54 at the beginning. Bicycles will be provided for those who will make service delivery. They will go from house to house and collect materials. If we collect 3 crore masks in a month then the total income will be 6 crore taka or 707,439.60 USD as the price of each mask is 2 taka or 0.024 USD. Each box will have 50 masks and each case will have 10 boxes. There will be 500 boxes in a total case and the price will be 5000 taka or 56.95 USD. The weight of each mask is 3.5 grams so the total weight of one case will be 1650 grams. One worker can carry 2 cases on a bicycle which will cost 10 thousand rupees or 116.91 USD. Bring the collected materials to us and we will sell it to the contacted waste management company. We expect the total collected masks to be 36 crore in one year and 180 crore in the next five years.