Awards: 1st Place

ZestBio is a startup spun out of UC Berkeley that is harnessing the power of biology to convert low value, abundant fruit and vegetable byproducts like citrus peels and sugar beet pulp into high performing plastic bottles and ingredients for dishwasher detergents. This proposal aims to build off recent business and technical advances to scale the improved fermentation technology from bench to pilot scale. At scale, ZestBio aims to make products with superior performance and dramatically reduced environmental footprint compared to existing solutions.

Visualize is a simulated training tool designed to train midwives in Ghana to screen for cervical cancer using the most appropriate and accessible screening method, visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA). Using a simulated tool is a novel approach to improve learning and retention of cervical cancer screening methods in low- and middle-income countries. Leveraging funding from a previous Big Ideas grant, Visualize was co-designed with midwives in Ghana and has gone through multiple design iterations, based on feedback from Ghanaian midwives, trainers, OB/GYN doctors, and healthcare administrators at every stage. Now the team aims to scale Visualize by implementing and testing this simulated training tool as part of VIA training sessions at three urban health training facilities. During these sessions, trainers will use Visualize to teach midwives how to perform VIA. The midwives will then be able to screen patients using VIA.

Ugandans have second or third tier roofs. Trash to Tiles (T3) is repurposing plastic waste in developing nations to produce affordable, quality construction materials such as roofing tiles, pipes, and pavers. By operating in areas with large amounts of plastic waste but no access to recycling, T3 provides a recycling option that currently does not exist. T3’s locally fabricated, precision-controlled machinery fills the gap between capital-intensive, industrialized manufacturers and low-tech NGOs struggling to expand. T3 will scale rapidly and empower local entrepreneurs through a franchise model. In the pilot market of Gulu, Uganda, T3 created prototype roofing tiles and pavers and confirmed market demand through 200 interviews. T3 is currently developing the second iteration machinery and establishing a community plastics collection center to provide a steady supply of plastic waste.

In rapidly urbanizing areas, small exhauster truck businesses are unable to keep up with the demand for pit latrine emptying services due to inefficiencies in their operations. Thus, when a latrine fills in most low-income urban areas, manual emptiers use buckets to empty the waste and dump it in the environment. This results in high rates of diseases such as cholera and dysentery. Pit Vidura enables sanitation service providers to grow their businesses by improving the efficiency and profitability of their daily operations. Pit Vidura’s integrated suite of technologies connects truckers to customers, intelligently routes truckers to clusters of customers, and streamlines payments for emptying services. To date (March 2019), Pit Vidura has served over 1,200 households in Kigali with safe emptying services and prevented over 3 million liters of human waste from entering the urban environment.