Hyderabad-based and T-Hub incubated waste management startup Banyan Nation emerged as the winner for the Intel & DST Innovate for India Challenge 2.0, for creating a zero-waste platform to streamline and automate urban recycling operations at every stage.

Banyan’s recycling initiatives with corporates are hugely impactful and contribute significantly to India's "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" and "Make in India" vision.

The startup has received the cash of Rs 20 lakh as a prize money of the competition, which the startup plans to use to refine & improvize the platform more, and hire software talent, they are also looking to raise more funds.

The startup has envisaged a smart waste technology platform that allows cities to manage city waste and recycling operations through a combination of on-field sensors like biometric attendance devices, bin sensors, GPS truck routers, DRCC and landfill management toolkits and back-end visualization and analytic engines.

Founded by engineering graduates -- Mani Vajipey and Raj Madangopal, in 2013 as a plastic recycling startup, Banyan Nation had earlier raised funding of $800,000 (about Rs 5.4 crore) from Artha Capital, in March 2016 as a part of the social enterprise technical assistance project run by the global PE firm KKR and Shujog – the not-for profit-initiative by Impact Investment Exchange (IIX).

The startup, post wining the competition, has now partnered with the Telangana government to deploy their zero-waste platform in the city of Warangal. Intel will continue to mentor Banyan Nation in terms of providing technical support and access to customers.

The platform that Banyan has developed can be deployed as an end-to-end solution, i.e. all the way from on-the-field sensors to the back-end visualization and analytics engine, or provide a modular solution where appropriate (for eg, integrate with existing 3rd party vendors who are optimizing specific areas such as GPS truck routing or worker attendance). The solution also fits in with large systems integrators and technology providers working on smart city solutions.

Banyan Nation’s management system aims to root out bottlenecks in India’s recycling value chain.
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