He fights global warming by improving waste management. His startup exchanges waste for basic products to encourage users from whom the waste is collected.

Alaa Afifi (photo) is an Egyptian entrepreneur and the co-founder/CEO of Bekia, a waste management startup.

The startup, founded in 2017, leverages technology to find solutions to issues related to climate change and pollution. It for instance set up an exchange system that allows customers to trade recyclable waste for groceries, subway tickets, medicine, or other household items. Also, it repairs and resells discarded electronics if they are still reusable.

"We in Egypt don’t have startups that can invest in waste and its management. We only have people who can collect the waste from the streets. We need a solution to the problem. So we thought of using the waste management problem as an opportunity because we have a lot of ‘valuable’ waste in our homes that simply end up on the streets," Alaa Afifi said in 2021 when asked what prompted the creation of Belkia.

In January 2023, the startup was announced in the inaugural cohort of the new US$2 million fund launched by VC fund Catalyst Fund. It will thus receive US$100,000 in equity investments and US$100,000 in hands-on business development support.

Its CEO entered the professional world in 2015 when he joined the online marketing team of eMarketing Egypt. Concurrently, he was a community manager for the local subsidiary review site Jeeran. From 2015 to 2008, he also worked as a project manager for the online shopping company herzon.com. The Google Adwords specialist is, since April 2019, a member of The Global Shapers Community.

Melchior Koba