EcoLafaek

Turning waste into intelligence

Dili, Timor-Leste

This is the citywhere I grew up.

But this is what it looks like
every day.

JICA recent report

300

tonnes of waste a day in Dili.

Only 63% is collected. 112 tonnes a day are left behind in streets, drains, rivers and the sea.

≈41,000tonnes a year never collected

188t

63%

Collected

112t

37%

Not collected

Source: JICA, Dili Solid Waste Management study (2024). 303 t/day generated, 184.8 t/day collected, 112 t/day uncollected.

The system is breaking at every step

01

Too few collection trucks

40 trucks for the whole capital

02

Some areas have no bins

Many of the rest are damaged

03

No data on where, what and how often

No tracking system at all

The city is flying blind: trucks and bins are not where the waste is.

The EcoLafaek solution

A platform that turns citizen waste reports into location-based insights to find hotspots, prioritise action and track outcomes.

www.ecolafaek.com

6 live apps · 1 backend Citizen appStaff appWeb reporterPublic dashboard + AI agentAdmin panelBinMap

How it works

From one photo to a cleaner street

1Snap

Every citizen becomes the city's eyes

One photo reports waste, even on a weak network. No sensors, no new hardware.

2Understand

Waste is understood in seconds

AI reads the type, size and urgency, so nobody sorts reports by hand.

3Act

Crews go where it matters most

The worst hotspots are cleaned first, so every truck trip counts.

4Prove

Results everyone can see

Citizens see their report cleaned. Leaders get proof of impact.

What it delivers

CitizensA voice, and proof their street got cleaned

The cityEvery truck and crew sent to where the waste is

PartnersVerified impact data for funding and reporting

What sets us apart

Built for countries like Timor-Leste Smart but costly Cheap but blind Costly, no citizens

AI-powered analysis

HighLow

Cost

LowHigh

EcoLafaekCitizen-centric + AI analysis + Affordable

SwachhataCitizen app, no AI analysis

RubiconFleet tech, no citizen reports

BigbellyIoT smart bins, hardware budgets

Business model

Citizens

Report waste for free. Every report is a data point and a visit.

Free, always

EcoLafaek AI

Turns reports into type, volume, severity, hotspots and priorities.

B2G

City subscription

$5,000/month per city

Municipalities pay for decisions: hotspots, priorities, outcomes.

B2B

Green marketplace + ads

$20/month per business

Eco businesses sell in the app and run ads to our community.

Traction

Against the world.

1^st

AWS AI Agent Global Hackathon9,500+ builders · 127 countries · announced on stage at AWS re:Invent, Las Vegas

EcoLafaek announced as winner at the AWS re:Invent keynote — AWS re:Invent keynote, Las Vegas

President José Ramos-Horta's post congratulating EcoLafaek — Congratulated by President José Ramos-Horta

Honoured with a traditional tais — Honoured with a traditional *tais*

250+citizen reports analysed

45+public bins mapped

30+waste hotspots detected

08AWS Summit keynotes, 2026

On TVTV show about EcoLafaek in Timor-Leste

Secure partnership

Defeza Ambiental

Fundação TasiFest

50,000+

community members
reached together

Market opportunity

$4.1B$15.97Bby 2034

Growing at a CAGR of 16.26% (2026–2034)

SDG impact

Real progress on five UN goals

SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities

Target 11.6 Less uncollected waste in Dili's streets and drains

Target 6.3 Waste stopped before it reaches rivers and the coast

SDG 12 Responsible consumption and production

Target 12.5 The circular marketplace turns waste into products

Climate Less open burning; data for planned waste-to-energy

Partnerships One shared data bridge for citizens, government and partners

Team

Two Timorese co-founders

Builds it

Co-Founder · Developer

Ajito Nelson Lucio da Costa

Owns the AI architecture and the full technical stack
IT Specialist for Big Data, Viettel Timor-Leste (Telemor)
Future Leader for ASEAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Machine learning research training, Gifu University, Japan

Sells it

Co-Founder & COO

Veronica de J.L. Baptista

Owns commercial strategy, government and NGO partnerships
MSc Digital Business & Innovation, Tokyo International University (JICA scholar)
YSEALI Women's Leadership Academy InnovatHer Fellow
Former marketing at Heineken Timor; host of the Becoming podcast

With $20,000

We unlock a

Global market

$15B+

Growing our

Community & users

100,000+

Invested in

Sales, marketing & R&D

S&M + R&D

Targets by end of 2030

One photo can clean a street.Together, we can save our planet.

Join us

Thank you

Obrigadu barak!

Backup slides

Appendix

Dili waste flow (JICA)
Monthly running cost
AI cost per report
Price options
Product screens
Technical architecture
Live data
AWS keynotes

A1 · Evidence

Where Dili's 303 tonnes a day go

JICA diagram of Dili's current waste flow

303.0 t/dgenerated in Dili municipality (households 231.9 t/d)

184.8 t/dcollected to Tibar landfill

112.0 t/duncollected: scattered, burned, or into rivers and the ocean

6.2 t/drecycled or exported to Singapore and Indonesia

Source: JICA, Dili Solid Waste Management presentation material, 2024 (jica.go.jp, Dili_SWM_Presentation_Material_English_2.pdf), slide 2.10.

A2 · Unit economics

What it costs to run EcoLafaek in Dili

Where the money goes at launch ($3,146 a month)

Team (2 salaries + social security)$2,120 · 67%

Marketing$300 · 10%

Contingency (10%)$286 · 9%

Claude (development tool)$200 · 6%

Other operations$150 · 5%

Hosting, database, storage, security$79 · 3%

AI (Nova Pro, Titan)$11 · <1%

Today · 25 reports/mo$3,135

Launch · 1,000 reports/mo$3,146

Growth · 5,000 reports/mo$3,442

Going from 1,000 to 5,000 reports adds only $296 a month. Cost per report falls from $3.15 to $0.69.

Founders at $1,000 a month each; Lightsail, Supabase Pro, S3, Vercel Pro; Amazon Bedrock on-demand prices, October 2026. From "EcoLafaek in Dili: monthly running cost and recommended price".

A3 · AI cost

Less than one cent to analyse a report

Step	Input tokens	Output tokens	Cost
Nova Pro: detection (is it waste? a real outdoor photo?)	2,600	300	$0.0030
Nova Pro: analysis (type, volume, severity, impact)	2,500	600	$0.0039
Titan: photo embedding (duplicates, hotspots)	1 image	–	$0.00006
Titan: location embedding	~25	–	$0.00002
Total per report	5,100	900	$0.0070

1,000 reports$7.04

5,000 reports$35.20

10,000 reports$70.40

One AI chat question$0.015

Nova Pro $0.0008 / 1K input and $0.0032 / 1K output tokens; Titan Multimodal Embeddings $0.00006 per image. Amazon Bedrock, us-east-1, October 2026.

A4 · Pricing

Price options for Dili

Option	Per month	Per year	Margin	What it means
Break-even	$3,150	$37,800	0%	Covers costs only
Pilot (first 6 months)	$2,500	$15,000	−26%	Gap of $646/month covered by funding or a sponsor
Standard (recommended)	$4,000	$48,000	21%	Full service for Dili
Full service	$5,500	$66,000	43%	Adds route and bin-placement reports
Earlier idea	$10,000	$120,000	69%	Too high for a first city contract

Salary per founder	Monthly cost	Margin at $4,000
$700	$2,447	39%
$1,000	$3,146	21%
$1,500	$4,312	−8%

Billed quarterly, 10% off for a year paid upfront. $48,000 a year is 0.7% of the US$7 million Dili committed to trucks and equipment (TATOLI, 22 January 2024).

A5 · Product

Six apps, one backend, live today

Staff app map for cleanup teams — Staff app for cleanup teams

A6 · Technology

Technical architecture

A7 · Real data

Real reports from the live dashboard

dashboard.ecolafaek.com: waste types, AI priority and reports by municipality.

A8 · Recognition