Announcing our second keynote speaker: Siddharth Hande
We’re excited to announce our second keynote speaker — Siddharth Hande, CEO of Kabbadiwala Connect.
Siddharth is a long time OpenStreetMap contributor and community builder. He will share his experience working with communities, mapping core and informal infrastructure and his leadership role at Kabadiwala Connect.
Kabbadiwala Connect is an award winning startup in the area of waste management and recycling. Kabadiwalla is a Hindi word for junk or scrap dealer. The company has an app, The Kabadiwala, that connects scrap dealers — kabadiwallas — with consumers, at the moment it’s only available Bhopal, Indore, Ahmedabad, and Aurangabad.
Siddharth began his journey back in 2014, where he started mapping kabadiwalas in Chennai. He along with his college friends organized clean-up drives on the Chennai beaches but soon realized that moving waste from one place to another is not solving the root cause of the problem and thus came up with the idea of this startup.
India generates 1,00,000 metric tonnes of waste per day. This waste includes paper, glass, recyclable plastics, metal and much more. Siddharth along with his team are leveraging the informal ecosystem of urban waste recyclers and contributing to a decrease in the sustainable amount of waste sent to the landfills. Read more about their amazing work on their blog.
