Dr. Abdel Hamid Beshara, managing director of MASADER Environmental Solutions and Energy Services, kicked off the workshop with his guest speech. His presentation included key background information on solid waste generation, collection and management, as well as its minimization, which would help the attendees with coming up with solutions. Ronald Lenz, cofounder of City Changemaker, also joined in inspiring them. His presentation included a briefing on Citychangemaker’s previous workshops as well as examples of how challenges could be turned into opportunities.
The workshop was then broken into groups for the brainstorming phase. They discussed challenges that existed in society and the opportunities they perceived as worthy of exploring. Their angles were different. While Shahir Mikhail, CEO of Gazwareen, saw a challenge in the education of both consumers and garbage collectors, Kareem Hisham, a product designer, believed that behaviors could be changed if we gave them the chance.
Once each group had an idea of what they wanted to work on, they went on a wild safari on the streets of Cairo. Their task was to conduct some fieldwork and interview people to fine-tune their ideas. They would come back with creative questions beginning with “How might we…?” to guide their solutions. After each group presented their question, everyone was off to refuel with lunch.
Then, the magic started happening. They were back to work on presenting their final product: their concept/solution. They would imagine the future a few years from now and present how their solutions would be in effect then.
The brainstorming, creativity and teamwork produced incredible results. From crowdsourcing the segregation and production of waste à la Uber, to collecting used cooking oil from residential areas to recycle and reuse, the solutions covered all. Another group addressed the less mainstream idea of textile waste, while others wanted to market the reusage of plastic waste for other purposes.
It is safe to say that the workshop was a great success, and the diversity was a great asset. Motaz Elewa from Biodiesel Misr, for example, felt it had been much needed “to get out of the office, meet people from outside work and hear what they have to say” in order to keep the creativity and ideas flowing.
Cairo would be much better off if these ideas and solutions were actually implemented.
