Waste Warriors - A Fight Against Nigeria's Waste Collection Delay Problem.

If you have read my earliest post on this blog, you'd know by now that I was opportune to be a part of a training that changed a better part of me especially my career part.

I am here again, to reflect like the other posts on some great experiences I was had during this training and I would be reflecting mainly on the hackathon I participated in. Yea, Hackathon! new word? or maybe not, but generally, I will define what a hackathon is, just so I am sure everyone is on the same page.

A hackathon is a sprint-event that runs for more than one day, where individuals brainstorm and solve a problem as a team. It is true that hackathons started with Engineers but generally Hackathons can happen in any field as long as there is a problem to be solved.

During this training there was a hackathon, I joined a team and we decided to solve a problem on reducing or eliminating waste collection delay in Nigeria, we thought of this problem because we realized that it a serious problem that has led to more issues such as pollution, unhealthy environments and even infections that could be caused due to this waste pollution.

Ordinarily, I would think it is a great idea and everyone would love it but I realized during this training that the users are as much important, hence, design thinking.

Design thinking is basically going through the process of a particular design and ensuring that every aspect of the users's needs is met.

We decided to have market research by each speaking to at least one person that might be affected by the problem we were planning to solve and be sure that we are really meeting their needs.

We created a great slide that encompassed all of this and after 2 great days of brainstorming, we were finally clear on how we would tackle this problem.

The pitch day came and we decided that every team member would talk extensively on what they did. It was really a great experience and I enjoyed every aspect of it.

Oh did I mentioned that we were judged by MIT and Havard judges and that means that the reviews and feedbacks were top-notch? We refined our approach and slide based on that feedback and we were able to get into a competition and went past the 1st stage to the second stage. So yea, top-notch feedback it really was.

Let me dive in a bit and summarize our product, you already know what it was meant to do yea? so here is a short summary.

That is a pictorial representation of the product summary and how we decided to solve the waste issue, not just solve but fight the waste issues, because we really are waste warriors!!!

Thank you for your time, till next time, see you.

Linda Oranya

Ordinarily