Hacker News Reader

Comment by nowarninglabel | Hacker News Reader

If anyone could help, I'm working with a company led by a young woman in Kenya who is actively creating paving bricks out of used plastic bottles. They need about $25k-$50k for machinery to help scale out the operation, and we're trying to find some people who can help secure this funding. Contact me if you'd like to help with doing something good with them.

Her company website: https://gjengemakers.wixsite.com/mysite

View on HN

Looks scammish

While I can't say anything about GP's post, the Gjenge organization doesn't seem to be scammy per se. It pretty interesting to scroll a bit through their Facebook timeline and see another world [1].

One which seems to be heavily influenced by a European and Canadian conference / competition for African entrepreneurs. While there are some photos of 'plastic bricks', the products predominantly seem to be conference demos, especially the mobile app [2].

[1] https://www.facebook.com/gjengemakersltd/

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noriega.g_...

I suppose that is probably true that a lot of very early stage startups may appear that way. That said, I've worked directly with them in Kenya and can attest to the fact that it's not and they are doing good work pushing this concept forward. If you have suggestions for other things that would help establish the veracity of things, do let me know.

what machinery is needed?

They need 3 machines specifically, one is for heating the material, one for pressing it, and one for forming it. I'll see if I can get the listing of the machines as she has already found the ones available for purchase locally.

https://www.macfound.org/fellows/807/

You should have her contact him. He has done some work involving pressed bricks with post-consumer waste, and in fact has taught a class at MIT where part of the coursework includes making bricks using recycled materials mixed with earth and cement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com