Curiosity Before Technology: Building Kolekt with Thierry Sanders - Exploring Circular Tech: Technology isn't magic
Technology isn't magic. But sometimes dropping your spoon in a bowl of soup during a pandemic leads you somewhere extraordinary.
In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Thierry Sanders, founder of Kolekt, a platform connecting waste collectors, buy-back centres, and recyclers across the Global South. Thierry's background spans fintech, microfinance, and living in developing countries from Ecuador to Pakistan to Indonesia, and Kolekt grew directly out of two weeks spent riding around Bali on a motorbike with informal waste collectors, learning how their world actually works.
What makes Kolekt's story unusual is the order of operations. Thierry didn't arrive with a product looking for a market. He started with cigarettes, lunch, and genuine curiosity, and the technology followed the problems he discovered: collectors wasting half their time searching for materials that weren't there, workers without phones or bank accounts locked out of digital systems, and facial recognition tools that didn't work for the people who needed them most.
The conversation is direct about the harder edges of this work: the fossil fuel industry flooding markets with cheap virgin plastic, governments demanding surveillance data on immigrant workers, and the gap between EPR policy and what actually reaches the people doing the collecting.
✨ In this episode:
* Thierry tells the origin story of Kolekt, from a pandemic soup bowl in Jakarta to 14,000+ waste collector profiles across six countries
* We explore the practical technology challenges of serving users who have no phone, no bank account, and no reliable connectivity
* Thierry explains how Kolekt discovered and worked around racist bias in open-source facial recognition
* Barry and Thierry discuss the economics of informal waste collection and why recycled materials cost more than virgin plastic
* Thierry shares his work advising South Asian governments on EPR legislation and the $100 billion opportunity it represents
* We hear how Kolekt chose to lose contracts rather than hand over user data to governments targeting immigrant collectors
👤 About our guest:
Thierry Sanders is the founder of Kolekt (kolekt.com), a platform that connects waste collectors, buy-back centres, and recyclers across the Global South. With a background in fintech and microfinance across developing countries including Ecuador, Pakistan, and Indonesia, Thierry built Kolekt after spending two weeks with informal waste collectors in Bali during the pandemic, learning how the waste economy works from the ground up. Kolekt now operates in Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mozambique, Kenya, and Ghana, with around 14,000 active waste collector profiles and close to 100,000 transactions processed. Thierry also advises governments across South Asia on Extended Producer Responsibility legislation and has developed Kolekt's EPR compliance platform for Mozambique.
🌍 About HappyPorch
HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.
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