Green innovation, service and products on display at Green Guyana Expo
DPI, GUYANA, Saturday, October 20, 2018
Exhibitors used the platform of the Green Guyana Expo to showcase products and services ranging from energy solutions, arts and craft, agro-products and smart recycling.
The Green Guyana Expo opened on Thursday at the National Stadium’s tarmac, Providence, East Bank Demerara. For some exhibitors, the Expo was an opportunity to broaden their business.
SWOPP, a mobile bartering app that allows people to exchange goods and services, were among the exhibitors demonstrating green innovation online. “We’re trying to move away from the throwaway society to more reuse and recycle,” Shemar Spencer, founder of the online service explained.
The idea for the service was conceived after Spencer, who once worked at a restaurant, noticed the volume of food being wasted. “I connected with a farmer and asked him if he needed food waste; he said yes. After he started to come every week I said can you give us fruit in exchange and he agreed. So immediately I said yes this is a solution,” Spencer said.
Spencer launched his app in August after realising that one man’s trash could, literally, be another’s treasure. The app has generated increased interest since day one of the Expo, Spencer pointed out. “A lot of people are responding. In one day, 50 people liked the Facebook page,” Spencer noted.
Another Guyanese showing his green energy solution was Vishnudatt Surajbali, the co-founder and CEO of H2Ogy, who developed solar driven technology to provide pressurised water to households.
Surajbali, born to Guyanese parents overseas, explained the idea for the technology was developed after he encountered how low the water pressure to homes can be when he visited back in 2015.
“We actually registered this year after feasibility studies and market research,” he explained. H2Ogy uses recyclable materials and solar energy to provide high-pressure water to homes, regardless of where the water is sourced from, at an affordable price.
Surajbali lauded the Green Guyana Expo. “It’s an initiative that we actually came here with but having the central government support this effort is very good,” he said.
H2Ogy CEO demonstrated how the technology worked by supplying water to the Central Housing and Planning Authority’s (CHPA’s) low-income model home. The house was part of the Ministry of Communities green community display.
A number of the exhibitors displayed solar energy solutions, including one foreign company seeking to expand its services to Guyana. Conexsol, is an engineering, procurement and construction company for solar solutions.
Nayrini Seepersaud, a representative of Conexsol, said the company found out about the Expo and decided to participate to advertise its services and try to connect to the oil and gas industry. “We’re collecting data, we’re talking to other companies we’re letting them know how we can work in solar solutions,” Seepersaud said.
The Green Guyana Expo did more than showcase green technology and innovation in energy and water. The show also demonstrated how green living can be incorporated into arts and craft.
On the opening night of the Expo, a fashion show, sponsored by Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI), demonstrated fashionable wear using recycled materials.
Local model and one of the promoters of the fashion show, which was titled Eco Chic, Treasure James, explained the show is to promote sustainable fashion.
“Upcycling of material and incorporating materials that we would normally dispose on a daily basis and put it into fashion and seeing ways we can actually reuse it. A fashion show is basically teaching Guyana and showing people ways you can be creative with everyday items we normally throw away,” James said.
James lauded the initiative of hosting a Green Expo. “It’s a great experience and it’s a good way to teach Guyana … what is green and how they can be part of a greener Guyana,” she said.
The Green Guyana Expo concludes on October 20.
Tiffny Rhodius
Images: Keno George and Jules Gibson