“From my school days, I had a huge liking for anything IT related. Little did I know, of the many great things to come!” 

It’s been a long journey for 27-year-old, Suresh Madushan from Embilipitiya. After having missed the chance of entering university on the first two tries, he excelled on his third try and entered the Rajarata University, Sri Lanka. However, university life was not the easiest period, Suresh explains. While following his ICT degree, the university faced several issues including water scarcity and constant student strikes. “We couldn’t study properly and that’s when a group of us moved to Colombo,” says Suresh.   

Together with his friends, they took part in all ‘Google Developer Group Sri Lanka’ workshops held in collaboration with the University of Colombo which helped them to be up to date on new technology in the IT sphere. Using this knowledge, they were able to come up with a solution to the water issues they faced back in their University in Rajarata. When the call for applications of the HackaDev challenge in 2017 went out, it is this solution that Suresh and his friends submitted…

‘HackaDev’- UNDP’s flagship initiative which kicked off in 2016 is UNDP’s take of a hackathon on hacking for development issues.

In 2017, Suresh and his teammates of ‘Team Strangers’ submitted an Information of Things (IOT) solution to the water crisis at the Rajarata University. This created a system to monitor the water quality and a delivery system thereafter. They went on to become one of the 9 teams of the 2017 Hackadev edition that was selected to receive seed funding and incubation support.  

YOUNG PEOPLE AT THE CENTRE

Achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda requires young people to be at the centre of the development of a country and calls for their active engagement. Under the leadership of the Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Employment and UNDP Sri Lanka together with the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the National Youth Services Council (NYSC), HackaDev - the National Youth Social Innovation Challenge has been nationally implemented for the past few years. In collaboration with Citi Sri Lanka, the Citra Social Innovation Lab and Youth Co:Lab, this is a platform where young people are given the space and support to develop their innovative ideas which tackles a social issue in the country. 

Following this, the team was also given the opportunity to participate at the 2018 Regional Youth Co:Lab Summit in Bangkok. From the sessions at the Summit, the team realized that the solution they are offering does not offer a profitable option, and therefore wouldn’t be viable to maintain with no stable investment. Suresh and the team were sent back to the drawing board to re-evaluate. 

“I spoke to a lot of people in the industry as well. After this, I had the idea of using this same technology for e-Local Governance and particularly waste management,” says Suresh.

Their solution went through a complete turn around and moved from addressing water pollution to waste management.

“Usually 90% of all startups end up in failure. So, we took a huge risk” says Suresh.

“I could have easily applied for a stable IT job, but I wanted to do this because I am genuinely interested in helping our communities.” However, due to financial pressure, Suresh lost a number of team members who didn’t opt to take this risk. So, it was up to him to spear head this initiative.

With a portion of the funding received, Suresh purchased a laptop with all the features required for him to develop this interface. He then started with his own hometown, Embilipitiya. The app was tested for 3 months where he would regularly receive feedback from officials of the local authority and add in more features. After seeing this success, the app was finally off the ground and officially launched. 

WANTING TO DO MORE

But Suresh wanted to do more. A product launch only wouldn’t be sufficient. He still needed to convince certain officials in the local authority and the general public that this will work. A PR campaign kicked into play, where all Garbage trucks in the area were repainted with details of the app and a QR code to download it. This created a huge impact and people’s attitudes on waste itself changed!

Under the ‘Haritha Nagara’ eco-friendly city concept, the local authority now had targets to achieve, where the app helped them achieve these milestones and be an exemplary council. It was after seeing this success that Suresh was invited by the Western Provincial council to explore the possibility of implementing this in their local authorities too. The business model built around this will see 70% of its profits going back to the Government, while 30% of it will be for the maintenance of the app. Suresh goes on to explain how the app not only focuses on waste management, but also addresses social issues within each city with a built-in chat room and other such facilities. 

The app is currently being implemented under a 6-month pilot project for the Western Province in Minuwangoda, and will be implemented in the Hamabanthota Municipal council as a next step.

“There are 340 councils across the country. What they like most about this, is the database which is a user-friendly interface,”

says Suresh on what makes his app attractive to the Government.

Through platforms such as HackaDev, he was also able to bring many actors to the table including UNDP, ICTA and telecommunication companies.

Suresh proudly states, “waste is not an issue. It’s the management of it that needs support, and that’s where this app comes in.” 

LONG JOURNEY FOR SURESH

It’s been a long journey for Suresh and it hasn’t always been easy. “Friends who were with me at these various challenges and competitions now receive salaries of more than 150,000 rupees monthly and are software engineers at leading IT organizations. I’m still hanging onto this.” This has created a lot of pressure even from home, where his parents have questioned as to what he is doing.

But he was always willing to take this risk. 

“My friends had other priorities. They wanted to be financially stable, get married and settle down. That’s not a priority for me at the moment,” adds Suresh with a laugh. 

“We have added in a disaster management element to the app as well, and this is what we submitted for HackaDev in the 2018 edition.” Team Ideal Six, underwent a 5-day Social Innovation camp as a part of the challenge in 2018, where teams worked on validating assumptions, deeper understanding the issue and their pitching skills. This has opened doors for other tech giants such as Google, to offer cloud support for the team for their start up solution for the next 3 years. 

BIG DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE

Suresh has big dreams for the future. As a next step, he has already started discussions with the ICTA where he hopes to develop a payment gateway for tax in the country, which has been a pressing issue for the Government. He has also been approached by an Australian local authority to develop a waste management app similar to the pilot projects in Sri Lanka. 

Suresh has gone onto become a huge inspiration, sharing his story with other young people on local and global platforms.

“For me, this was never a big risk in my mind. If I take something on, I like to see it through. Because of this attitude I was able to overcome a lot of obstacles to be where I am today,” says Suresh with a big smile.