Locally empowered innovative mobile application to enable effective solid waste collection

Mr. Shihab Aaqil, University of Peradeniya and Mr. Rouzin Azar, South Eastern University of Peradeniya

Day to day accumulation of solid wastes without proper management has resulted in the eruption of several garbage flocks, especially in the cities with condensed, urbanized dwellings in Sri Lanka. Daily collection of solid wastes from households is not counterbalanced with the effluxion to the local government garbage vehicles, because of the limited availability, mal-allocation and mal-distribution of resources without a proper systemic management. As a consequence, the over accumulated wastes find their settlements in the dumpsites near public places and busy streets. The recent Meethotamulla garbage dump collapse which killed many lives and damaged the habitat, well indicate the problem as a less concerned subject. The dengue, an unsolved puzzle which is partially accommodated by the garbage heaps, also points out the recklessness of all relevant stakeholders regarding this issue in the past years. Nevertheless, there have been some measures at the national level to overcome this tragedy and recently a step has been marched, by means of developing a "National Action Plan for Waste Management" by the key government ministries in consultation with several stakeholders at national and sub-national level.

Many professionals and youth, who were concerned about this issue could have been curious to come up with ideas to find out innovative solutions for effective waste management. Since, with this thought, a group of youth from Ampara district of Sri Lanka extended their idea of incorporating modern technologies in the 'collection of waste’, which they found as a serious issue in their region, particularly in the Municipality of Kalmunai located in the East coast in Ampara district. They were keen in developing a mobile application to make the waste collection effective and efficient. A team of youth comprising of members from ideaGeek and Youth Creative Action Network (UCAN) had several brainstorming discussions and finally ended up with a product named as "CITIZEN", a fully-fledged mobile app to facilitate the general public and local authorities for an effective collection of waste in resource limited settings.

IdeaGeek, which was established in 2013, is a digital solution provider, powered by creative ideas that are fueled by a team of professionals, whose field of expertise is web and app technologies. They also have extended their realm in digital marketing as desktop application developers. Youth Creative Action Network (UCAN) was formed in 2016, is an organization which is intended in promoting the social standard a step further through innovation into practice. UCAN was initiated by a like-minded group of young individuals from all three ethnicities with the aim of contributing to reconciliation and innovation in Ampara district. Initially, UCAN received a seed grant from a youth innovation program supported by US Embassy in Colombo to pilot new innovative ideas proposed by five youth groups from Ampara district. Since the participants realized the importance of innovation, UCAN was formed to carry out innovative social projects by the youth, which could also serve as service learning projects during their undergraduate studies. In this background, the solid waste collection was found to be a major social issue within the Kalmunai region and it was believed that the technology could offer an innovative solution to the problems at stake. As a subsequent step UCAN members were entrapped towards developing a mobile application. But UCAN members found hard to initiate this due to lack of resources. At the same time, team UCAN came to know that, ideaGeek was interested in involving Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Then, UCAN collaborated with ideaGeek to commence the progression of the development of a mobile app through this project.

Both team members discussed and drafted a plan considering the need of this app, goals, development, awareness to the public, feasibility, implementation, timeline and measures to evaluate the project. Meanwhile, the team decided to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology with the support of Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd. Kalmunai Municipal Council (KMC) was interested to carry out this project with the Citizen team after an elaborative session.

The need for this app was realized after the visualization of several garbage dumps near the public places and polluted water resources in spite of the collection by the KMC. The goal is to create a nature friendly, hygienic and healthy environment with reduced risks from spreading of communicable diseases within this region. Hence, changing the attitude of the general public through a systemic approach to get rid of this national calamity from Sri Lanka. Above all, there are direct benefits to the public and KMC. Facility to locate the truck and a prior notification to the public through an arrival roster, will help the public to be prepared with their garbage packs. Thereby it will reduce the duration of time that a truck spends at a household. Consequently the distance covered per day by a truck will be maximized.

The development of the application initially started under a hypothesis that around 85% of the residents from KMC are smartphone users; among them majority of the people are Android users. Thus, ideaGeek team targeted on developing the app initially to the playstore and to progress further. Besides, the team hoped that the usage of this app by the households could be the major challenge in its success. Then the citizen team decided to seek the help of community based organizations, youth clubs, voluntary organizations and religious creeds to overcome this challenge. The feasibility study of the app was planned to be carried out within the localities of KMC, through a pilot trial. Eventually, the success of the project will be assessed by the index like diminution of health risks, from the data of epidemiology unit under RDHS office, eye-catching garbage free water resources, and public places and the survey results among the public.

In the meantime, an idea competition in the name of "iVoice" was organized by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) under the sponsorship of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In this competition, the idea was pitched by the CITIZEN team and it got selected within top 20 ideas out of 119 ideas proposed around the Island. As a next step, the idea won a place among the top 10, in the final residential workshop held in Colombo. The team was presented a grant to carry out this project within three months duration which ends in 31^st of December 2017. The selection of the idea in the national platform made the team more enthusiastic and added more energy to the work.

The works proceeded with several trials and fixing of technical faults for a better rectification of the mobile application before launching it to the public. The app reached its final stages and a pilot launch was organized on 20^th of December 2017, with the participation of Kalmunai Municipal Council Commissioner, Engineer, staff and representatives of SDJF, UNFPA, ideaGeek members, UCAN advisor with UCAN volunteers. In this launch the app was introduced and a pilot trial was performed with one truck, in the presence of invitees. The GPS devices will be fixed in all the available trucks at KMC. The app will be officially launched and available in the playstore for utilization of the public. The members of the UCAN and ideaGeek team are looking forward to further advance this mobile application with new additional features to enable a complete technology embedded solution to the emerging solid waste management problem in Sri Lanka.

(UCAN members; Mr. Shihab Aaqil of University of Peradeniya and Mr. Rouzin Azar of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka have contributed in writing this article).

Weather Related Disasters in Sri Lanka: Most Vulnerable and Where to Find Them Wimal Nanayakkara

Wimal Nanayakkara writes about way forward for dealing with disasters in Sri Lanka

The available data on natural disasters, covering a long period of time, need to be analysed in depth.  These findings should be used by city and town planners, as well as rural area planners, both at the national and the regional levels, when developing effective strategies to minimise the social and economic impacts of natural disasters. The sharing of available data/information and the proper coordination and collaboration between government agencies are absolutely essential in this regard.

The following recommendations should also be implemented.

1. Developing a comprehensive database and up to date website giving information on high risk areas, trends in natural disasters, the number of persons affected, time periods during which the disaster occurred by regions, etc.
2. Mapping areas frequently affected by floods, droughts, landslides, storms etc., so that people can avoid the high risk areas.
3. Making early warning systems more effective and efficient, so that the damage and loss of life is minimised. 
4. Using the available information, especially past trends, to control and reduce the adverse effects of natural disasters and to develop coping strategies. 
5. Establishing an effective system to rehabilitate the affected people, especially the poorer and economically vulnerable groups, to recover their assets and to help them to get on track to proceed with their livelihoods.

https://climatenet.blogspot.com/2018/11/weather-related-disasters-in-sri-lanka.html

SL ranked second in the Global Climate Risk Index 2019

Sri Lanka had been ranked second among the countries most affected by extreme weather events in 20 years since 1998 in the Global Climate Risk Index 2019.The Long-Term Climate Risk Index listed Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico as the top two affected countries. 

Sri Lanka was ranked fourth in the Climate Risk Index (CRI) in 2016 and it was in the 76th position in the Human Development Index (HDI) in 2017.

The Global Climate Risk Index 2019, was released at the annual climate summit in Poland's Katowice city yesterday. The report was prepared to analyse damages caused by the extreme weather events that took place from 1998 to 2017.

According to the annual CRI for 2017, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka and Dominica ranked as the most affected countries in 2017 followed by Nepal, Peru and Vietnam. For the period from 1998 to 2017, Puerto Rico, Honduras and Myanmar rank highest. Nepal was ranked fourth and India 14th in the list.

According to the index, altogether, more than 5,26,000 people died as a direct result of more than 11,500 extreme weather events; and losses between 1998 and 2017 amounted to around US$ 3.47 trillion. 

The Index said, in May 2017, heavy landslides and floods occurred in Sri Lanka after strong monsoon rains in southwestern regions of the country. More than 200 people died after the worst rains on the Indian Ocean island since 2003. The monsoons displaced more than 600 000 people from their homes and 12 districts were affected. The inland southwest district of Ratnapura was most affected where over 20,000 people faced flash floods.

The Global Climate Risk Index 2019 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events such as storms, floods, heat waves etc. The most recent data available for 2017 and from 1998 to 2017 were taken into account. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)

http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/SL-ranked-second-in-the-Global-Climate-Risk-Index--159427.html

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http://www.redr.org.uk/en/where-we-work/sri-lanka.cfm

http://www.redr.org.uk/en/where-we-work/sri-lanka.cfm

Tsunami response – stepping into the fifth year Lessons and review from Sri Lanka

Eng. Aslam Saja
26 January 2010

The December 2004 tsunami was the largest natural disaster in Sri Lanka in living memory with over 35,000 dead, almost a million displaced around the north, east and south coasts of the island. Given the fact that most of the tsunami affected areas were also conflict- affected, there have always been peaks and falls in terms of long term tsunami recovery.

In October 2005, more than 60 institutions and more than 100 experts and practitioners in the tsunami response which consisted of representatives of government, civil society and international development partners met and reviewed the progress, identified the interventions and recommended the way forward for 2006. During this review it was felt that the first year of tsunami relief, recovery and reconstruction efforts have recorded quite significant successes. However there were shortcomings and the challenges for the future which all actors were aware. The report was prepared on “Post tsunami recovery and reconstruction – Progress, Challenges and the way forward” which summarized all the activities under seven thematic areas which are emergency response and relief, emergency shelter to permanent housing, restoring livelihoods, health, education and protection, upgrading national infrastructure, capacity building, environment and gender and the implementation of the guiding principles.

Since then it is the hope that in the completion of the second year all actors are committed to record a dramatic progress in this ‘build back better’ concept and to complete the enormous tasks overriding the identified challenges so that the affected communities by tsunami will be able to look forward a better future. In order to achieve the set targets, the agenda was defined by all the actors by taking into account the lessons learnt from the past year’s achievements, difficulties and setbacks to move the progress forward.

However, the political and security context of the country put this progress further down and there was a need arised to incorporate the conflict issues in the tsunami response programme in the north and east part of the country in the early part of this year. In this context of deteriorating security situation and the uncertain political environment has resulted in the slow pace of the development projects in the country. This has brought more stress on people and they are now bound to focus on their life at different angle with all these immense of human sufferings. This leads the actors in the tsunami response programmes and other key stakeholders in humanitarian action to reformulate their strategy in order to respond real community needs in the forthcoming year collectively towards alleviating the human sufferings.

In these scenarios, to address the issues in the conflict areas consolidated appeals process in Sri Lanka in which strategic planning leading to Common Humanitarian Action Plan can possibly be expected as a timely co-ordinated action in the humanitarian platform at least to respond this humanitarian crisis in the next few years.

The demise of the Eng.Thasthakeer – A great loss to the young bloods!

Engineer A.R.M. Thasthakeer, 33 an outstanding personality in the field of Civil Engineering has passed away in the Kandy General hospital on 23^rd May 2010.

School – Kalmunai Zahira College

BSc Engineering – Civil Engineering, University of Peradeniya, 2003

MSc Engineering – University of Moratuwa, 2009

Charted Engineer – 2010

Engineering grand challenge: What do you think?

10 June 2011

You can vote @ http://www.engineeringchallenges.org.

In the world today, many of engineering’s gifts to civilization are distributed unevenly. At least a billion people do not have access to adequate supplies of clean water. Countless millions have virtually no medical care available, let alone personalized diagnosis and treatment. Solving computer security problems has little meaning for the majority of the world’s population on the wrong side of the digital divide. Sustainable supplies of food, water, and energy; protection from human violence, natural disaster, and disease; full access to the joys of learning, exploration, communication, and entertainment — these are goals for all of the world’s people.

So in pursuing the century's great challenges, engineers must frame their work with the ultimate goal of universal accessibility in mind. Just as Abraham Lincoln noted that a house divided against itself cannot stand, a world divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and hunger, cannot long remain a stable place for civilization to thrive.

Through the engineering accomplishments of the past, the world has become smaller, more inclusive, and more connected. The challenges facing engineering today are not those of isolated locales, but of the planet as a whole and all the planet’s people. Meeting all those challenges must make the world not only a more technologically advanced and connected place, but also a more sustainable, safe, healthy, and joyous — in other words, better — place.

Here are the Grand Challenges for engineering as determined by a committe of the National Academy of Engineering:

• Make solar energy economical
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration methods
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Reverse-engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Advance personalized learning
• Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

You can vote for these challenges as you think which would be your priority to contribute as an engineering professional.

(Courtesy: ttp://www.engineeringchallenges.org)

Contributed by: Eng. Aslam Saja 

Humanitarian Engineering – Not so much talked about in Sri Lanka

Eng. Aslam Saja
05 September 2011

I just thought to write this note just after visiting the Engineers Australia Webpage. Engineers Australia has announced the year 2011 is the Year of Humanitarian Engineering – a year in which it will recognize the role of engineering in improving quality of life and disaster recovery.

What does it mean to us as Engineers in Sri Lanka, who have gone through more than two decades of conflict, recurrent annual floods, importantly 2011 floods and major devastation by 2004 Tsunami?

The humanitarian Engineering page of Engineers Australia webpage defines the interface between humanitarian and engineering like this; “Engineers play a huge role in improving the quality of life of people beset by disadvantage as well as helping communities recover from floods, earthquakes and other disasters as quickly as possible. From the delivery of clean water and power, to the design of sanitation services and infrastructure, engineers’ ingenuity helps solve many problems facing communities. Some of the key areas of focus as a profession include: water supply, sanitation, energy, waste disposal, transportation, communications and support for disabled people”.

We have done so much for the past two decades in this area during the continuous protracted humanitarian crisis aroused due to the natural disasters as well as man-made conflict. Are we taking them stocks from the engineering side for our future learning, not only for this part of the country, but as lessons learnt and will give a way out to tackle the similar type of problems needing engineering solutions in the other parts of the world.

Now, we have a real opportunity to initiate this discussion with the launch of symposium of Social System Design by IESL in Sri Lanka this year. I think this type of forums will enable us to foster the importance of engineering in multi-disciplinary platform.

I further explored about Humanitarian Engineering concept and found some interesting definitions and examples. One such example is that;

In the past, engineers may have asked, "How do I generate electricity most efficiently?" The humanitarian engineer asks, "How can I help to reduce poverty?" The answer to this question may include generating electricity, but more importantly, Humanitarian Engineers will try to balance technical excellence, economic feasibility, ethical maturity and cultural sensitivity.

Humanitarian: an artifact, process, system, or practice promoting present and future wellbeing for the direct benefit of underserved populations

+

Engineering: designing and creating a component, subsystem, or system under physical, political, cultural, ethical, legal, environmental, and economic constraints.

=

Humanitarian engineering: Design under constraints to directly improve the wellbeing of underserved populations.

I recorded a statement during an informal chat with one of my engineering colleagues, who worked in the humanitarian response in the North, who noted “the knowledge of engineering is not just limited to designs, BoQs and contracts in large engineering firms, it also gives you a happiest moment in your life of applying it in a small scale community projects. You can sense how small engineering aspects help to provide dignified life for the affected people. Serving humanity always need to take priority over profiting from those deserve help, which makes us satisfied with what we do”.

Engineers can do far better community and social work than anyone else who just alone study social sciences, if they are tuned with the basic principles of community mobilization. But one would argue that it is difficult vice versa.

In order to be capable of being part of any humanitarian response to which the support from an engineer be demanded, it is always better to be prepared with the necessary skills along with our areas of expertise.

Engineers in the public domain - Code of ethics Vs reality!!!!

When I read through all 8 clauses in the codes of ethics for the Engineers, which establishes the good conduct for an Engineer, the clause 3 reads as “Engineers shall build their reputation on merit and shall not compete unfairly” and the rule 3.1 is to ensure that “engineers shall not seek to gain a benefit by improper means. It follows that engineers – shall neither pay nor offer, directly or indirectly, inducements to others”.

I just want to put a simple question? Are we Engineers holding this value – Majority, may be YES and minority may No or worse and some are questionable? The reputation is built on merits of ones own good conduct. Do we have a barometer to measure this in reality…?

I share what I hear from the society – from the person who deals with Engineers, which then extends to other public which in turn is talking point in the public domain, is that some Engineers are often corrupted from the day they come out of the University and just beginning their career paying a bribe to get a job. I don’t want pinpoint here what people are specifically talking about (but few cases - even some engineering colleagues also speculate), which is not the aim of this article, but just to raise questions whether do we have mechanism specifically address these professional issues.

As I pointed out earlier – People think that only few Engineers do that or did that in the past – may be few, but still a point for our concern as professionals, which have a negative impact in the society! I’m not sure who is involved in this bribe – if it is an another superior Engineer – then you have a second layer of problem – not only for the job hunting Engineer – but more importantly with the Engineer involved in getting bribe for recruitment.

Let this pass on and dwell within our professional circle ------, but more for the public – it is the job for an Engineer in an Engineering company or in a Engineering institution, be it state or private – interviewed and offered by an Engineer ---- All are Engineers in the chain and may be some others as well – intermediaries, which is always a complicated picture.

Next, if this trap is successfully climbed– be it through bribe (which may be rare – rather than saying more common for engineering jobs compared to other jobs – No evidence or assessment that I know of so far). But getting a job in a professional way – not bribing anyone – then you are in a biggest trap in the circle of un-professional and un-ethical engineering business world, which is getting bribe in your work for favoring contractors, bids, privileged monitoring and evaluations, signatures etc... which goes through all phases of a project cycle of a project and also in different projects in a programme?

I just would like to highlight one thing through this little story which I here in the recent past. We teach “Engineers in society” – good ethics and professional conduct and evaluated ourselves from our side through discussions, forums and so on to be more proud of – but have we ever evaluated us from the public side – from the people who receive our service, from who have competed for our services and have good and bad experiences of dealing with Engineers responsible and from the end users of our service, to better understand what it means to be an Engineer in the society who holds what is in the code of ethics. We may need to have this monitoring barometer to ensure that the above code of ethics is really worth in practice. This could be a concern for an Engineer who wishes to uphold the real implementation of code of ethics in his professional and personal life.

Eng. Aslam Saja 
May 2012