BEntrepreneur Magazine sat down with Jaffer Al-Hamad, co-founder of iTadweer to talk about the importance of recycling and how this need spawned iTadweer.

Please tell us more about iTadweer and what inspired you to create the business?

Our story started about three years ago in our company’s office. I noticed the amount of paper and plastic that we used to throw in the garbage bin. Regardless of being an information technology company, paper was used significantly in our work. So I searched for an environmentally-friendly solution that we can adopt instead. After researching, I discovered that we have ‘recycling companies’ that operate as a collector of paper, plastics, and metal waste from residentials’ places and companies’ offices. When I contacted them over the phone, they thankfully arrived at our office and placed two sorting bins. Every time they were full, we used to call them to collect the waste.

After a while, we realized that calling them to come and collect the sorted waste was time-consuming and inefficient, as we used to repeat the same information everytime; name, full address, and location description. What was frustrating to us and to many others who wanted to recycle, is that these people are inaccurate in their timing and sometimes they don’t answer our calls. Accordingly, we started to analyze such issues people suffered from and how to resolve them.

Your business idea revolves around recycling which is a big issue in any country. How do you plan to change the recycling industry?

We utilized our expertise in developing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) softwares.Acccordingly, we started planning and developing a comprehensive solution. We started effectively engaging with people and building what is so called in the current startup eco-system, a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which validates the applicability of the concept and that people are actually interested to engage with it. To put it simply, iTadweer is a platform that aims to increase recycling efficiency by engaging people with recycling.

We also built a simple online form to enable people to register if they are interested in recycling and sorting the waste from their houses and office. During the first three days, we received more than 1,200 registrations; on top of that, we also received more than 200 calls from different people, asking us actively about the actual date on which we are going to officially launch.

We defined our approach as a centralized tool of communication between people from one side and recycling companies and factories on the other. At the same time, such a tool will be used by recycling companies and factories to properly manage their process and operations because most of them don’t use any type of system. Our platform consists of a cloud-based system that can work on any device, linked with an application that is available for people and communities.

In the future, we will integrate new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to the industry. With such focus on the technological aspects of the industry, those recycling companies and factories will focus more on their operations and we will continue to upgrade our systems to provide high levels of technological services.

Throughout the journey of more than a year of platform development and general research since November 2017, we came across different types of concept validations and we felt more and more confident that what we provide is unique and valuable. Recently, a businessman told us that some years ago, they lost a total of BD1 million in a recycling factory which eventually closed. One of our main objectives is to help such recycling companies and factories secure their workflows and optimize their processes, and most importantly, remain in the business and grow. Because, we believe if our platform had been there to help all those parties, people will not suffer for doing the right thing, and factories will maintain and grow their businesses.

With climate change and its ensuing problems, people now have a responsibility to go green. How is iTadweer helping people to be more aware of ecological problems and solutions?

At the iTadweer team, we have a deep concern about enviornmental issues related to recycling, so we summarize our role to ‘the provision of technological services that can engage people with the solution and make recycling companies and factories more efficient and sustainable’. Our set of features for people include:

1.Better Experience: Enhancing people’s current negative recycling experience that follows waste-sorting process, and replacing the calls to recycling companies with a simple action on an application.

2.Increasing Awareness: Raising the recycling awareness and knowledge through simple and easily accessible multimedia, articles, and other resource types.

3.Higher Engagement: Increasing people’s engagement by accessing ‘points’ accumulated by submitting more sorted waste.

What were the challenges that you faced as a startup and how were you able to overcome these challenges?
At the beginning of the project, communication with different partners was not easy to arrange, but luckily, Bahrain is small enough to find connections. Today,

we have established many connections with recycling entities, some corporates, and some governmental bodies. One obstacle remains existing for us today, which is the seed funding of $160,000. We need this amount to help us hire talented people, purchase some required machinery and equipment, and further develop our platform.

What advice can you give to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those who would like to enter into green businesses?

Bahrain’s ecosystem is becoming more and more encouraging for all entrepreneurs and startups to launch and get support. Also, many entrepreneurs are accessible and answer a lot of questions regarding the issues that you as a new entrepreneur will face. Challenges are everywhere, and will continue to arise for all types of startups. Green businesses still have a huge opportunity to establish and thrive, but one of the main things to keep in mind is how to create and balance the benefits for all partners related to the business.