Biography

Bara, the “Toilet Guy”, is the co-founder and CTO of AKYAS, a venture in sanitation innovation. He is a self-taught sanitation practitioner who found his passion for building sanitation facilities from local materials – usually with kids as the (assistant) master builders. Trained as an environmental engineer, he had the privilege of learning from amazing professionals across disciplines in non-profit settings. His previous portfolio includes volunteering with medical doctors for displaced populations and serving as a logistics officer with MSF in the Middle East. Bara has gathered a handful of enthusiasts in the public health, medical, sanitation, design and business sectors from Jordan, Yemen, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US, who hold the same proposition that sanitation could be made available in any settings for everyone. He and team AKYAS are actively striving to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation. Despite multiple challenges he confronted as a sanitation innovator, Bara gained a good amount of experience to move forward by: (i) building his own laboratory in his basement, (ii) tweaking his grandpa’s home recipe in killing deadly pathogens, (iii) validating the lab tests with academia and (iv) creating partnerships in global summits, exhibitions and entrepreneurial fellowship. Currently based in Jordan, Bara is an emerging entrepreneur in the sanitation business. He is leading his venture to go further beyond Jordan, to serve communities in water-scarce and emergency settings. Bara, together with team AKYAS, is bringing forward the validated lab tests into field tests and operations to further quantify the impact of the AKYAS sanitation innovation. He has a liking for agriculture and cooking. He would envision “closing the loop” of his sanitation business by farming, cooking and eating. He lisps and talks about poop around dinner tables. Bara looks forward to talking about toilet business with you