Our projects — Idea Factory

+1 pt · segregated · week 14

Civic infrastructure 01 / Active · year 02

Gamifying waste management.

Jaffna municipal area · expanding to Kilinochchi — 2024 →

A points-based household waste-segregation programme co-designed with the Municipal Council of Jaffna. Households earn weekly points for properly separated waste, redeemable at twelve participating neighbourhood shops; schools compete in a monthly clean-up league with a small trophy that travels between principals' offices. The app is SMS-first for families without smartphones — paper sticker on the bin, three-digit code to text in. We have not, so far, called this "empowerment"; we have called it taking the rubbish out, which it is.

8,400households enrolled
+36%diversion vs. baseline
12redeem-partner shops

In partnership with Municipal Council of Jaffna · WasteAid · Jaffna Schools Network · Hatch Works (engineering)

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layer 14 of 64 · PLA

Maker & fabrication 02 / Active · year 03

Rapid prototyping, with a 3D printer.

TRACE Jaffna lab · visiting workshops across the North — 2023 →

A small, stubborn fabrication corner of the lab: two Prusa MK4 printers, a CNC, a soldering bench and a printer that mostly works. The brief is simple — turn a drawing or a conversation into a thing in seventy-two hours. We began by making custom prosthetic finger splints for patients referred by the Jaffna Teaching Hospital's reconstructive surgery unit; we now also print replacement parts for water pumps in Mannar, tactile teaching aids for visually-impaired pupils, and the occasional terrible chess piece. Every design we make is open-sourced under CC BY-SA.

314objects printed
72hrmedian turnaround
41designs open-sourced

In partnership with Jaffna Teaching Hospital · Northern Province Education Dept. · e-NABLE Sri Lanka · Open-Source Hardware Initiative

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handloom

palmyrah

pickle

spice

ceramic

book

madein.lk · 187 makers

Enterprise & livelihoods 03 / Active · year 04

Madein.lk — a storefront for the country.

Built in Colombo · serving producers in all 9 provinces — 2022 →

A direct-to-buyer e-commerce platform for Sri-Lankan-made goods: handlooms, palmyrah products, ceramics, pickles, spice blends, small-press books. Built and maintained by the lab for small producer cooperatives who otherwise couldn't run their own e-commerce stack. We take a flat 4% to cover hosting and payment-gateway fees; the rest is paid to the producer in fourteen days, not ninety. Eight Northern Province cooperatives sell through it, including the Karam women's collective in Vavuniya and the Jaffna handloom guild.

187producers listed
LKR 41Mpaid to producers, 2025
14 dayspayment terms, always

In partnership with Sarvodaya · Department of Industries · National Crafts Council · 12 cooperative federations

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47 Stanley Rd, Jaffna · lights on, late

Place & community 04 / Operating · year 03

Managing TRACE Jaffna, the co-working space.

47 Stanley Road, Jaffna — 2023 →

We took over operational stewardship of TRACE Expert City's Jaffna branch in 2023: a 1,400 m² co-working space and incubator on Stanley Road — two floors of desks, three meeting rooms, a hot-bench fab lab, a courtyard, and an espresso machine that mostly works. It hosts thirty-six resident members (startups, NGOs, freelancers, two architects, a postdoc), runs the monthly Jaffna Founders' Night, and is — quietly — the place where most of the projects on this page happen to meet for tea. Our field office is on the second floor; the door is the green one.

36resident members
1,400 m²two floors, Stanley Road
84events hosted in 2025

In partnership with TRACE Expert City Colombo · Northern Province Council · University of Jaffna Career Hub · Hatch Sri Lanka

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Our projects.

Gamifying waste management.

Rapid prototyping, with a 3D printer.

Madein.lk — a storefront for the country.

Managing TRACE Jaffna, the co-working space.

Where we work.

Anchored in the Northern Province.