OUR STORY

BrighterBins is the brainchild of Noman Ahmed. Noman likes to take his children to the local park. A clean park preferably. Irritated by the overflowing public bins, he wondered: 'What if these bins could tell us when they are full? What if bins could talk?' As he was staring into the void, an idea started developing. He walked home, of course with his kids, contemplating how he could give bins a brain.

​Many a time Noman hit the steering wheel of his car in frustration, his speed reduced to a snail's pace as he trailed behind  a garbage hauler on its round. Noman felt a bout of eco-anxiety coming up, thinking of the level of CO2 emissions produced by the cars stuck in traffic. 'If these bins had brains and talked, we could empty them more efficiently and certainly not during rush hour. This would also reduce CO2 emissions,' Noman pondered. ​

Noman shared his ideas with Imdad Laskar, his former boss, who immediately saw the potential of the idea. From there they started their entrepreneurial journey. Noman's interest in IoT, machine learning and artificial intelligence and Imdad's expertise in manufacturing and international B2B sales resulted in the establishment of the company SmartEnds (est. 2017). SmartEnds develops products and services for IoT object detection applications.

And then one day the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. A cost-effective smart waste bin sensor with a flexible design, fit for any type of waste bin, was the answer to overflowing bins and inefficient waste pickup. After intense R&D, their idea materialized into a product. In 2019 Noman and Imdad launched their first product BrighterBins.