Dubai’s Free-Sharing Economy: Why Buy When You Can Reuse?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This is the Morning Drive at Mira Business FM. What if the things you no longer need could help somebody else instead of ending up as waste? A UAE-born startup is using technology to make that happen, connecting people who want to give away unwanted items with those who can put them to good use. And it's all for free as well. It's a new approach to sustainability, community sharing, and hopefully responsible consumption too. Jérôme Viricel is the co-founder of Hiiba, which is essentially a circular reuse and peer-to-peer app that lets people give away stuff they don't need and maybe even adopt pre-loved goods. Jérôme, thank you for joining us this morning.

Jérôme Viricel (0:42)

Good morning, Mike Negril.

SPEAKER_1 (0:44)

Good to have you with us. You've spent, what, 25 years, I believe, in entrepreneurship, industrial-scale sustainability. You led the digital recycling platform Recapp by Veolia Middle East.

What was the moment or the insight that made you realize that we needed a platform like this, you know, peer-to-peer item sharing, not just traditional recycling?

Jérôme Viricel (1:11)

Actually, it's because I'm living here since 15 years in Dubai, actually in Jumeirah.

And I used to see a lot of items in very good condition in the street, because people are moving from one home to another one, or just going back to their home country. And they live sometime in the street close to the bin, some items which are in very good condition. So the idea came to say why we don't organize something which is more convenient, such as a platform like Hiiba.

SPEAKER_1 (1:43)

I guess we often think about recycling when we talk about sustainability, but we should really be thinking about reusing first, shouldn't we?

Jérôme Viricel (1:53)

Yeah, exactly. Because as you mentioned, I was working before in Veolia and I develop a digital application for the recycling purpose. But before recycling, I think it's very important to reuse, because first of all, the reuse is easier, it's less consuming in terms of energy. It also helps us to mitigate our own resources that we extract from the earth when we have to produce a new item. And then when we have to recycle it, it's also a lot of effort in consumption of energies. While reusing, it's simple.

It doesn't make any effort if we have an application such as Hiiba, enabling people to be connecting from the same area, from the same location or very close in order to share an item which is not useful at all for someone that own it and could be used by someone else who did it. So reuse is a first step before recycling.

SPEAKER_1 (2:51)

So how does it work? If someone listening has a coffee machine, some furniture, whatever, kids' toys may be sitting, gathering dust. How does Hiiba connect them with somebody nearby, with make it easy to share if you like?

Jérôme Viricel (3:10)

The principle of the application is very simple. You just take a picture or a photograph of your item that you would like to give to someone, and then you post it into the application by giving a title and a small description, and that's it.

So you are a giver, and for that, you will receive some messages from people who are willing to adopt this item. And we are mentioning adopting because it's given for free. So those person who are looking for an item, they can browse the listing through the Hiiba application and just say, okay, I'm interested in this item. And they can click on a button to pre-reserve this item, or just to send a message to know if it's possible to collect this item within the day or the week. And that's it. So it's a free exchange platform, peer to peer, for free item, enabling the community to discuss together without bargaining, in term of pricing, without any, I would say, any constraint that enable us to adopt an item which is comfortable to acquire for free.

So that's a simple way to just connect people from an area to another one. And we have a geolocalization system. So the first item that you see when you explore the application, it's all the items which are available five kilometers around your location.

SPEAKER_1 (4:40)

Okay, I've got you. So it's kind of geolocated, I guess. In terms of how does the security around this work in terms of sharing? This is done through encrypted messaging, I guess?

Jérôme Viricel (4:53)

Yeah. For example, when you send a message, first of all, you are a very fine member. So someone will give an item, can be contacted by someone who register into the application. So we have the identification of this person, and then they discuss together as they wish. And they just arrange a timing for a meeting. And because it's a verified solution, the transaction is recorded. So when someone is giving an item to another person, he can confirm the transaction. So we know who adopts the item, and we are able to have a trustability of the transaction.