A Cape Town-based company, DragonFly, recently won the GreenPitch Challenge for its development of AI cameras to assist waste management in recycling facilities. (GreenCape/Supplied)
- A Cape Town-based company has developed AI-powered cameras to assist in waste management.
- The company, DragonFly, recently won the 2024 GreenPitch Challenge for its AI-driven solution.
- According to one of the judges, South Africa faces a significant landfill waste problem, and the use of AI technology to address this issue caught their attention.
- For climate change news and analysis, go to News24 Climate Future.
A Cape Town-based company, DragonFly, has developed AI cameras to assist waste management in recycling and sorting facilities.
The startup was one of 10 finalists in the 2024 GreenPitch Challenge and ultimately walked away with R60 000 and other giveaways to scale the business.
The Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) GreenPitch Challenge, now in its seventh year, is an annual competition that seeks to scale green solutions by innovators and entrepreneurs.
According to one of the judges, Kanyisa Mzilikazi, principal investment officer within the climate and environmental finance unit at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the diversion of waste to landfills is a huge problem in SA. Using AI technology to solve that problem caught the attention of judges.
Mzilikazi said that the judges were looking for businesses at the cutting edge of green technology in South Africa, especially locally produced green technology or intellectual property.
“We were looking for projects that had a practical, pragmatic approach to commercialise because it’s one thing to have groundbreaking technology, it’s another to be able to commercialise that technology,” Mzilikazi added.
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One of DragonFly’s employees, Luke Osborne, in his pitch said that in the last three years the company has been involved in the waste and recycling industry, it found that most of the problems come down to a lack of tools for oversight and visibility.
He said this results in high dumping costs, municipal fines, a lack of monitoring, and inaccurate billing for waste collections.
“As a solution, we leverage artificial intelligence, specifically computer vision, to drive efficiencies in the waste management sector,” said Sean Kelly, the co-founder of DragonFly.
The cameras essentially make use of AI to provide real time analytics on the waste composition – which results in improved operational and sorting efficiency at facilities.
The company aims to increase the quantity and quality of recyclable materials, which would help reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills.
DragonFly first piloted its solution in 2021.
Osborne said that the company had installed the AI cameras at one of the largest waste and recycling material recovery facilities in South Africa at the beginning of this year. The cameras, which help identify which waste is recyclable, helped divert 150 tonnes of waste from a landfill in a period of three months.
“We also managed to save 15 hours a month, and the reporting time the manager used to set into the evening was spent compiling these reports,” Osborne added.
The cameras are lightweight and agile, Osborne said. The company also charges a minimum monthly rental rather than an upfront payment to use the cameras.
DragonFly has managed to secure offtake agreements with large South African companies. It currently employs seven people and has plans to expand.
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“We’re super excited to have been given this award and to be part of such an amazing community,” Kelly, said upon receiving the GreenPitch Challenge win for DragonFly.
“It is just great to be getting more involved with the GreenCape team they bring a wealth of experience and relationships which is of benefit to us and the growth trajectory of the business,” he added.
The GreenPitch Challenge is hosted by GreenCape, a nonprofit that promotes green economy solutions. This year’s prizes were sponsored by several companies including RMB Ventures, Pulse Digital, Green Connexion, Thinkroom, AltGen, and The Ethical Agency.
