Kanpur, India, September 24, 2018 : Kanpur-based startup HelpUsGreen, which converts flowers and offerings collected from religious places into biodegradable alternative to Thermacol and incense sticks received the United Nations Young Leaders Award at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, yesterday. Ankit Agarwal, Co-founder, HelpUsGreen, was selected as one of the 17 young leaders for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations, at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Ankit was selected from more than 18,000 youth from more than 184 countries. As a young leader, for the next two years, Ankit will be engaged in UN advocacy efforts and support young people in the realization of the goals by collaborating with the UN on strategic opportunities. The Young Leaders, representing five continents, seventeen countries, and their constituencies of millions of young people around the world, range from scientists, inventors, story tellers and activists.
The UN Young Leaders is a flagship initiative led by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s envoy of youth. The jury comprised of social visionaries and SDG advocates spanning across a range of backgrounds.
Founded in May 2015 by Ankit Agarwal (28 years) and Karan Rastogi (29 years), HelpUsGreen has been supported and incubated by Tata Trusts’ Social Alpha and IIT Kanpur. HelpUsGreen is a sustainable solution to the monumental ‘temple-waste’ problem in India. Having pioneered the ‘flowercycling’ technology to preserve the Rivers Ganges from becoming a dumping ground for temple waste; they have recycled 11,060 metric tonnes of temple-waste flowers till date. HelpUsGreen collects 8.4 tons of floral-waste daily and is upcycled into biodegradable packaging material, charcoal-free incense and natural vermicompost. In an effort to create a circular economy, HelpUsGreen employs women who were earlier manual scavengers thereby impacting more than 73 Manual Scavenger families and increasing their income 6x times. They are also being provided with facilities like insurance, bus service and medical benefits.
Ankit Agarwal, UN Young leader for SGD said, “We are deeply humbled by the UN recognition and opportunity to represent our nation, India at the prestigious forum furthering our work towards cleaning the Ganges and 2030 agenda for sustainable development.“
“Three years ago, Member States committed to the Sustainable Development Goals, an ambitious agenda for people and planet. In order to achieve these ambitious Goals, we must engage today’s youth and empower a generation which knows about the Goals, cares about their success and actively works toward their realization,“ said Ms. JayathmaWickramanayake – UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Youth.
Manoj Kumar, Head, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Tata Trusts & CEO, Social Alpha said, “HelpUsGreen has very innovatively applied the regenerative system model by recycling waste and also creating employment for the extremely poor and underprivileged. We are proud of what the founders have achieved in a short period.”
Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director IIT Kanpur, said, “Flower waste to Greening, IIT Kanpur is proud to be the technology partner of HelpUsGreen, a company dedicated to not only greening the environment but also in the process empowering thousands of women through this endeavor matching IIT Kanpur’s credo of ‘Technology for Sustainable development’.”
HelpUsGreen is also set to receive the ‘Goal Keepers Award’ award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation this month in New York and the UN Momentum of Change Award, which will be awarded as part of COP26 Summit in Poland in December. Earlier this year, Ankit Agarwal was named in the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
About IIT Kanpur
Established in 1960, IIT Kanpur is a one of the foremost engineering institutions in India. The Institute runs several undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral courses across engineering, humanities and sciences and is known the world over for its cutting edge research and teaching methodology. The incubation center at IIT Kanpur was set up in 2003 and since then it has grown to become one of the leading incubators of the country. In 2011, it won the National Award for Technology Business Incubators.
About Tata Trusts
Since inception in 1892, the Tata Trusts, India’s oldest philanthropic organization, have played a pioneering role in bringing about an enduring difference in the lives of the communities they serve. Guided by the principles and the vision of proactive philanthropy of the Founder, Jamsetji Tata, the Trusts’ purpose is to catalyse development in the areas of health care and nutrition, water and sanitation, education, energy, rural upliftment, urban poverty alleviation, and arts, craft and culture. The Tata Trusts’ programmes, achieved through direct implementation, partnerships and grant making, are marked by innovations, relevant to the country.
About Social Alpha
Social Alpha promotes innovations and entrepreneurship with a mission to create large scale sustainable social, economic and environmental impact. Social Alpha nurtures start-ups through their lab to market journey, helping them create high quality, commercially viable, accessible and affordable solutions. Social Alpha is focused on catalysing entrepreneurship for impact and provides critical technology and business incubation support to the mission driven start-ups.
