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Home Cairo + Waste Results

On September 23rd 2016, City Changemaker partnered up with icecairo to address Cairo’s waste problem with its Cairo+Waste workshop. Attendees came from a variety of backgrounds, from designers and engineers to marketeers and researchers, and their diversity brought forth not only different perspectives, but also unique solutions.

25 young entrepreneurs, creatives, community leaders, and other changemakers joined us on the day to take a deep-dive in the challenge and reflect on:

“How might we use creative and artistic practices to turn waste into new products and services that can catalyze new jobs and businesses for the next generation?”

Participants were guided through a structured innovation process inspired by the Creation Flow developed by the THNK: School for Creative Leadership . From connecting, to finding inspiration, to ideating around the challenge question and finally to the pitches, we shared a great time one the day:

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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.

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CITY//CHANGEMAKER is building up as a platform for urban innovation in emerging cities. We connect city changemakers in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and mine for disruptive innovations that can scale and address pressing urban challenges in the region.

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