Offering reward points to communities in crowded urban areas in exchange for recyclable waste, resulting in better living standards and a cleaner, healthier environment.

Saruni Brian Maina

Saruni Brian Maina is a business minded individual with a heart for the community. He is currently a Business and Information Technology student at Africa Nazarene University in Nairobi.

Together with a group of friends he came up with the idea of starting Taka Smart. Taka Smart was conceived as a project idea for the Hult Prize 2016 Competition, with the theme “Crowded Urban Spaces”. Out of 15 teams, Taka Smart was selected to represent the University in the Hult Prize Regional Competitions in Dubai.

Saruni took part in SE Forum’s Social Business Bootcamp in 2016.

Taka Smart

Taka Smart counters the challenges faced by residents of crowded urban areas such as Nairobi. Each day, tons of waste is left uncollected, which leads to spreading of diseases such as Cholera. Taka Smart wants to change this by making the collection of garbage easy and rewarding. Instead of just having the normal methods of garbage collection where residents wait for the garbage companies to come and collect the garbage from their homes, Taka Smart will establish collection centers at different locations across the city, where residents can drop off recyclable material for reward points, which will be loaded onto a card. The points will then be redeemable at various stores, where people can trade them for items. Saruni and his team also plan on introducing the option for people to donate the value of their points to charity. In short, Taka Smart is a social enterprise with a global goal to have sustainable cities, not only in Kenya but all over Africa.