Meet the founder of Reconnai
Born and raised in the Netherlands, Wilson Ko is a generalist robotics engineer with a background in computer science. His education took him to many countries, from the Netherlands to Switzerland to Singapore. Upon graduating from his master’s program, he began working for Fizyr, a robotics startup. In 2016, they entered the Amazon Picking Challenge and won. Soon after, Wilson received an opportunity to transfer to Preferred Networks, a Japanese company based in Otemachi, Tokyo. Wilson took the offer, and made his move to Japan in 2017.
Wilson continued to work at Preferred Networks throughout 2020, focusing primarily on deep learning-based robotic picking applications and research. At the end of 2020, he found an opportunity to partner with a friend and work on an idea for a plastic sorting app. They joined a few competitions for exposure and saw its potential as an actual business model. However, his friend’s original business was focusing on renewable energy while the plastic sorting app idea grew big enough to be a business on its own, so Wilson decided to branch off. Thus, he founded Reconnai in 2021.
What is Reconnai?
Reconnai is an application designed to promote and guide the general public in developing good waste-discarding habits. Users take a picture of the waste to be discarded, and a trained AI analyzes the waste and provides step-by-step instructions for proper handling. Once the waste reaches the local waste plants, the plants themselves would have similar AI technology installed in order to sort the effectiveness of the users. The users are then able to see how they did and receive rewards through Reconnai’s brand partners.
In order to encourage users to recycle correctly, Reconnai plans to reward users with cash back or points that come from its brand partners. This was inspired by the deposit return system in Europe, where consumers can receive a sum of money back when they return plastic bottles. Wilson shares that this method is one of the proven systems that work for battling plastic waste, citing that some regions in Europe have achieved as high as a 90% recycling rate.
The user journey envisioned by Reconnai. The user snaps a picture before disposing of his/her waste, it will be traced to the waste plant where it will be evaluated. Finally, the user will get feedback and rewards based on his/her sorting performance. Reconnai wants to focus on creating the AI classification algorithm that will be used for the mobile app and waste plant evaluation part and partner with existing infrastructure/technology for the rest.
Wilson claims that the tracking of the waste in the waste plans is important as it can provide feedback to users and track the success rate — see what they're doing right, what they might have to change, and offer points of improvement. This holds users accountable for how they recycle, and also provides opportunities for learning about what happens to their waste and how they can continuously improve. Reconnai aims to track individual waste volume with the hopes of encouraging the need to reduce. “Just having this number, I think, is very valuable in creating this awareness and hopefully will stimulate people to reduce.”
Reconnai interacts with four different markets: consumers, waste plants, governments, and big brands, where all stakeholders have different needs and priorities. Partnering with waste plants is a key component that allows monitoring of the waste data and providing users with an analysis of their waste volume and their efforts. Wilson also plans to sell plastic credits to businesses to allow them to offset their plastic production in order to achieve plastic neutrality. Reconnai’s hope is to not replace the already effective technology and infrastructure used at waste plants to collect and sort waste, but to partner with companies and governments by introducing a new technology that encourages integration across different stakeholders to simultaneously work towards a common goal while still achieving their individual motives.
One of the problems that many face when recycling is the reduced awareness of the rules — it's confusing, may be different based on area, and people are generally unaware of the behind the scenes in waste reclamation and recycling. Reconnai hopes to guide consumers at the source, beginning as early as the moment a piece of waste is first thrown into the bin.
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Before Reconnai, Wilson worked in the robotics field, specifically with picking robots. While he still believes that picking robots is an innovative and incredibly promising technology, he wanted a change — to do something cutting edge, new, and most importantly, with global effect. Upon brainstorming some of the world’s most pressing problems, the immediate thought was plastic pollution and climate change. Wilson turned towards his own lifestyle and personal experiences with plastic waste to help curate ideas for a product.
When Wilson first arrived in Tokyo and received a large chart of the waste discarding and recycling rules from his ward office, he found himself confused and even overwhelmed. To his dismay, even asking friends who lived in a different ward or city didn’t help, since there were different rules. Even something as simple as throwing away a piece of trash became an everyday problem. This then led him to think, “Why not have an AI powered mobile app that can tell you exactly how to deal with your waste in your local neighborhood by just taking a picture of it. You don’t need to think anymore — just take a picture and it will know where you are, pull up the local rules, and tell you exactly what you need to do.”
Before, Wilson had considered his knowledge of sustainability to be average. He didn’t go out of his way to volunteer or join NGOs, but at the same time, was wary enough to be conscious of acts that would pollute or be harmful to the environment. He recalls, “I decided that needed to change. The world needs change and I need to start educating myself. If I want to create a solution for this field, then I need to research and try to find out what is a really pressing problem — what could be solved with AI robotics and what cannot.”
Wilson took action by making presentation slides with example ideas and began talking to as many people and experts in the field, asking questions and seeking feedback. He was lucky enough to start first with his family. With a cousin working with edible straws, and a younger sister who recently started an NGO for promoting slow fashion, he looked to them for knowledge, advice, and connections. As more active members in the environmental and sustainability field, they were able to connect Wilson to some venture capitalists and startup founders in the cleantech field. “I’m happy that I found this idea and application that seems worthwhile to pursue as a business direction. It ties both my want to solve plastic waste issues and my expertise together.”
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While the idea to create an app in order to foster better care and accuracy for recycling stays the same, Wilson shares how Reconnai has evolved, and continues to evolve. As a first-time startup in which everything is bootstrapped, Wilson has been learning on the go. Through constant feedback and new insights obtained from working with accelerators and advisors, he is able to “learn from it, take it in, then try to to use it to improve my business. In all aspects everything is still evolving.”
In gathering new information from experts and advisors across multiple fields, he often received advice that came with contradictions — either with his own values, with other pieces of advice, or even both. He shares that, when describing Reconnai’s technology, people often noted that it provides lots of valuable data that can be sold. At first, Wilson agreed and thought of selling data as the most obvious and convenient way for revenue. After reconsidering his original motivations and taking into account his own values, he realized that selling data was not the type of company he wanted Reconnai to be. He believed — and still firmly believes — that Reconnai should be a company that does not betray its own values in return for the quick cash. One of these values is protecting privacy rights, which indirectly links to Reconnai’s mission of reducing waste. “I respect and want to protect our customers' privacy. Furthermore, if I sell this data to marketing firms, for example, will they use it to market even more products to us, so that we buy more, so that we pollute more? If so, that’s a big contradiction to my vision and mission.” While some business owners or venture capitalists may think that he is leaving earnable money behind, he believes the opposite. For Wilson, it’s not only about making profit, but also about doing what he believes in. By giving up the idea of selling data, Wilson looked to other sources of revenue that align much more closely with his vision. The business model of selling plastic credits to big brands to help businesses become plastic neutral was idealized as a result.
Things tend to change over time, especially for a young startup still working many things out, but Wilson is convinced that there is something that will never change at Reconnai. Reconnai envisions a world where people will know how to sort and reduce their waste without any effort. This is Reconnai’s unchanging and unwavering mission. “Maybe in the future there might be no place for a plastic app like this because everyone already knows it by heart. That would be great. Maybe I’ll need to pivot, but that’s fine as business should adapt to the different times and trends anyway, and it’s the world I want to create and live in. In that world, maybe this app will act more like a guideline or a digital bible of waste separation that you can fall back to.”
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Having recently completed the SeedS program at Startup Work to gather more information about founding a startup, Wilson is now enrolled in the Plug & Play Japan Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) program and the AcceliCITY semi-final virtual incubator program. Reconnai is currently at the stage of seeking proof-of-concept validation — viewed as a viable business plan with many kinks to work out before receiving investor buy-in. To get through this challenging stage, Wilson has been devoting most of his time into refining his business model and finding true market fit, with the intent of producing a spectacular MVP to win over potential investors.
Wilson has also started talking to potential clients globally. He had the opportunity to visit a recycling waste plant in Saitama, received inquiries from a company in Indonesia, and was even contacted by a school in the Netherlands that looks to launch a pilot project to educate their students on how to responsibly handle their waste.
While not in the immediate near-future, Wilson shares that expanding globally has always been the goal for him. Although starting in and based in Tokyo, Reconnai’s mission targets a universal problem, found everywhere across the world. Wilson aims to create a solution that is easily scalable to other locations and cultures, to expand the impact he hopes he can make. “This plastic waste problem is not only in Japan, not only in Europe where I’m from, but also in [less developed countries like] Southeast Asia, which is very notorious for plastic waste problems. Everywhere in the world is dealing with this problem and I don’t think we will be everywhere in the world in 5 years, but that would be the future goal.”
Another goal Wilson has for Reconnai is to contribute to the development of more effective picking robots. With much research and development needed for picking robots, and his belief in the impact that picking robots may have on the plastic waste issue, he shares, “That’s probably going to be the next phase of Reconnai, where we will try to use the AI that we created to help develop sorting robots.”
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Wilson shares with us his perspective that, in order to combat plastic waste, solutions must exist on every layer. Experts know that recycling alone is not enough, but it can contribute to the bigger picture to help to slow down the stream of waste into the oceans. Aside from recycling, the other R’s of reusing, reducing, and retrieval play equally or even more important roles.
The problem now is that our waste streams are simply too contaminated and too mixed to sort. With China banning all imports of foreign waste just last year, Japan burning 73% of waste due to contamination, and 25% of waste in the US ending up in wrong bins, the problem is evident. Wilson and Reconnai aim to tackle this waste problem by slowly changing consumer behavior. “We’ve been consuming too much, recycling too little, separating too little, and we lack awareness. To be honest, picking robots are great for retrieving from the environment, but don’t you think we’re spoiling the consumers too much? I know I’ve been spoiled. I used to think everything I put in the recycling bin magically gets recycled, but that’s far from the truth.” In reality, many people, robots, and machines work together behind the scenes in an attempt to sort everything, despite it being impossible to do it 100% completely. Instead of putting all of our waste into one pile only for other people and machines to agonizingly attempt to sort it out again, consumers as a whole should contribute to fixing the cause by doing it correctly from the beginning.
Wilson also shares his insights surrounding a “battle of fault” regarding plastic waste that he’s noticed between consumers, producers, and the government. Consumers usually fault producers for pushing plastics onto them, whereas producers blame consumers for demanding too much plastic and for excessive consumption. The government also faces blame as people argue the need for better legislation to reduce waste on all levels. “But the truth is that we’re all living on the same planet and we’re all responsible. We should stop pointing fingers at each other and try to work together instead.” Producers continue to produce plastic bags because consumers continue to use plastic bags at the grocery store. Consumers continue to use plastic bags because producers continue to produce them. It is a vicious cycle, and instead of shifting blame, we can each try to make active decisions to encourage a positive response from the other.
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Among everyone that he has met on his journey, he first shares the influence that his partner has had on him and Reconnai. Not only has she been fully supportive of his decision to leave a well-paying job to pursue the startup challenge, but she has also played a key role in the development. While Wilson is on the frontline with tackling business leads and product development, she is consistently covering the various administrative responsibilities behind the scenes. To Wilson, they are practically business partners building a company together. Being a foreign founder in Japan is no easy task, and as a result, he found himself relying on her for support even in the cultural sense. Wilson shares that his girlfriend has been a teacher and a reminder to him regarding Japan’s various business and cultural quirks. “She is practically my co-founder. All of these things we discussed together, we developed together, and she supports me in all ways… Personally, but also professionally. She is the most important to my business.”
Wilson reflects that meeting and connecting with people has been rewarding in many ways. For example, “I was very happy to meet Miho and Roger from Startup Work. They were so nice and open to teaching me a lot of things that I didn’t know, again, like how things work in Japan and what to expect of the business culture. In the beginning, I didn’t even know how to make my pitch deck.” Wilson treasures these connections as it not only makes him happy, but also proud. He believes that their willingness to provide advice and support is an indication that they recognize Reconnai and its mission as being worthwhile to nurture.
In terms of milestones, Wilson sees every advancement to the next round of an interview or acceptance into an accelerator program to be a proud milestone, as it indicates to him that Reconnai is doing the right thing and moving in the right direction.
To Wilson, the biggest challenge thus far has been the inexperience of founding a company. “One day, I quit my job and was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to be an entrepreneur. So… what now?’” He confesses that even now, he sometimes still feels like he’s stumbling around in the dark. Some parts of the road have been progressively getting brighter as he meets new people and gains new knowledge, but he feels much of the journey is still unknown and uncertain. At the same time, this uncertainty is also shaping up to be extremely exciting. “Like fight or flight stress, but it's exciting like you’re riding a rollercoaster. That’s what it has been: a lot of ups and downs, very fast at times, and very slow at other times.”
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Given everything he has learned so far, Wilson has some insights he would like to share with new founders. He shares that talking to, asking questions, and truly listening to everyone around you is vital. “Put away your pride. It’s good to have pride and good to be proud of your vision, mission, and solution, but you’re new. There are so many smart people around you, so take the opportunity to learn from those who are experienced.” Sometimes, he admits, it may seem like they are attacking your points, and you may be in heavy disagreement. The important thing is to first listen to each and every piece of information and feedback, regardless of good or bad, and then decide upon the advice that may make the most sense. Wilson shares that he has been able to take all of the advice in some way, shape, or form and apply it to his business, even if only as an abstract learning experience.
Wilson also believes that overall, new founders should go into their journey with an honest and transparent mindset. There is the popular “Fake it ‘till you make it” philosophy that is all too common in the business world, but Wilson personally tries his best to be upfront and lay out all his cards from the get-go instead. Wilson shares that clients, investors, and experts will ultimately find out if you were not being honest, and it will not help nor benefit anyone in the long run. “Be honest, and say up front, this is what the deal is, this is where I am, I know this, I don’t know that, maybe you can help. It’s okay to be uncertain, because everyone has to start somewhere, so really try to get the knowledge and connections that you need by being open.”
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Wilson hopes in 5 years, first and foremost, Reconnai will be flourishing in business. He hopes that there will be some neighborhoods that have implemented his app & technology, and that he will have completed some successful pilot runs. Most importantly, he hopes that his business will be validated.
Wilson wants to see that, aside from all of the standard metrics of measuring business success, Reconnai will truly make a difference in tackling the recycling contamination problem. He wishes to see the day that the Reconnai team will consist of like-minded individuals that believe in reducing plastic waste and improving the sustainability of the planet. Ultimately, he hopes that the number of users and clients, both consumers and businesses, will benefit from and love using his solution.
Learn more about Reconnai’s mission and join their cause in achieving a plastic-neutral planet — and hopefully one day, plastic-free!
