A 24-year old Indonesian man has been selected as a finalist of the Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards, after setting up a health insurance scheme in East Java that accepts waste in return for medical treatment.

Gamal Albinsaid, Director of the Garbage Clinical Insurance (GIC) programme, has been chosen as one of seven finalists of the inaugural Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2013, for his ‘practical, tangible solution to help make sustainable living commonplace’.

Scheme details

Falling in the award category for ‘Sanitation and Hygiene, Waste, Supply Chain Micro-entrepreneurs’, the GIC programme sees residents of Malang, Indonesia, take organic and non-organic waste to a collection point near a health clinic to be processed and sold in return for healthcare.

Organic waste is composted and sold to a fertilizer ‘salesman’, while non-organic waste, such as paper, cans, glass bottles, and plastic, is sold to waste collectors. All money collected from selling the resources is then put into a community health fund that is used for treating and preventing illness, making health care ‘quality improvement programmes’, and financing rehabilitation projects.

Writing in the application for the award, Albinsaid said: ‘I believe that health is [a] fundamental human right. But, in reality many people can't get health access because they don't have enough money and the cost for medication is expensive. We started to think ‘how could we create a health financing model which [allows all] people to get health access?...

‘GCI is a micro health funding which can be run by minimum effort within a community and can lead to optimum results. The main principle is organizing [a] community to create sustainable financing from their own resources in order to improve the access and quality of [a] public health program, from promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative aspects.

‘On the other side, this becomes an incentive for [a] community to start a proper waste management from household level, thus contributing to improve local sanitation. Garbage Clinical Insurance is empowering every individual to mobilize overlooked resources and take [an] active role in managing health financing.’

The scheme is currently making around 10,000 Indonesian rupiah (around £52) a month.

Award details

Open to individuals under the age of 30 from any part of the world, the Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards – which opened in September – aim to ‘inspire young people around the world to tackle environmental, social and health issues’.

The awards seek to find ‘products, services or applications that enable changes in practices or behaviours’ in one of the following categories:

• improving water, sanitation and hygiene in developing countries or remote areas;
• improving nutrition and taste of food, or promoting healthy diets;
• conserving water or reducing water use, either in communities or in manufacture processes;
• reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced;
• helping to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste throughout the pre-production, production, and consumption lifecycle;
• encouraging sustainable agriculture or conserving resources; and
• helping smallholder farmers improve their practices.

The six other finalists for the award are:

• Anu Sridharan, 26 (India) for NextDrop - Water use optimisation and leakage tracking via a real-time data and messaging system;
• Blessing Mene, 26 (Nigeria) for Unfire - ‘Low-cost chicken-feed’ (using waste mango seed) for smallholder farmers;
• Surya Karki, 23 (Nepal) for Maya Universe Academy - Sustainable collective farming for rural Nepalese communities, with farm profits use to fund free schools;
• Isabel Medem, 28 (Peru) for X Runner - Waterless toilets in slums that converts waste into saleable compost;
• Curt Bowen, 26 (Guatemala) for Pigeonpea - Smallholder farmer crop solution for ‘natural, sustainable soil enrichment and greater income’; and
• Manuel Wichers, 26 (Mexico) for Ilumexico - Carbon-free renewable energy from solar lamp network plus micro-loans.

Next stages

The seven finalists were chosen from 510 entries from 90 countries for their ‘scalable and sustainable solutions in the form of products, services or applications that enable changes in practices or behaviours’.

They will now take part in a four-week development programme followed by an ‘accelerator workshop’ in Cambridge, UK, at which ‘expert help and professional guidance’ will be provided to help them develop their ideas.

This will be followed by a pitch to a panel of judges in London, comprising entrepreneurs and leaders from business and sustainability.

One overall winner will then be picked to attend a dinner on 30 January 2014 to receive the HRH The Prince of Wales Prize, alongside a cash award of €50,000 (£42,000), and a ‘tailored programme of advice and mentoring’ (worth a reported €25,000).

The remaining six finalists will receive cash prizes of €10,000 (£8,400) along with mentoring support worth an estimated €10,000.

‘Creating a brighter future for all’

Unilever CEO Paul Polman said: “We are delighted to have had such a great number of entries, and of such high calibre from all corners of world.

“The entries provide proof – if it were needed – of a young generation of leaders eager to develop their fledgling businesses into ones that could genuinely make a big difference. Using our energy, innovation and resourcefulness to support them will, I believe, accelerate the development, multiply the difference and help create a brighter future for all.”

Polly Courtice, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL) Director added: “We have been immensely impressed by the strength and diversity of the applicants in this first year of the awards. We look forward to welcoming the finalists to Cambridge and starting to support a vibrant new network of young leaders for change.”

The competition is being hosted on the Ashoka Changemakers social enterprise network.

Read more about the Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards.