While many Guyanese complain about littered streets, illegal dumping and clogged drains that contribute to flooding and environmental degradation, young innovator Maryam Bacchus chose a different response: she built a solution.
At just 20, Bacchus developed Litta Reporta, a citizen-reporting app designed to help communities identify and report littering, illegal dumping and poor waste disposal practices—transforming frustration into innovation and civic action.
Her story is not just one of coding. It is one of courage, observation and refusing to normalise dysfunction.
As STEMGuyana founder and Executive Director Dr. Karen Abrams recently wrote in an op-ed reflecting on Bacchus’ journey, “Maryam’s story is also not only about a young woman coding an app. It is essentially about a young person seeing a national problem, refusing to accept it as normal, gathering information, designing a solution, and investing months in attempting to place technology in the service of public good.” That, Abrams argued, is what true innovation looks like.
Bacchus launched Litta Reporta in January 2024 after witnessing firsthand the growing solid waste crisis affecting communities across Guyana—garbage piling up in public spaces, drains blocked with waste, and illegal dumping contributing to flooding and public health concerns.
Instead of seeing it as somebody else’s responsibility, she saw an opportunity. “The Litta Reporting app is basically an app to bridge the communication between persons who are affected by litter and improper solid waste management within their communities and authorities who can actually solve these issues,” Bacchus said at the app’s launch.
The app allows users to upload photographs, identify litter hotspots and document environmental issues in real time, creating usable data for communities, environmental agencies and policymakers.
But the bigger idea behind Litta Reporta was not simply reporting—it was building accountability.
Bacchus understood something many systems often miss: problems cannot be solved properly without data.
“All this data, I believe, is critical in solving the issue so that we do not put proverbial band-aids over issues anymore and that we actually come together and use valuable data to form more permanent solutions to these issues,” she said.
Her innovation quickly attracted support, including backing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which helped fund the app’s development.
That support allowed the app to be made available free to the public and positioned Bacchus among a new generation of Guyanese youth using technology to solve real-world problems.
But Bacchus’ story has taken on even greater relevance in recent weeks.
Two years after she built Litta Reporta, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched its own litter-reporting system, Clean592, aimed at helping citizens report littering and environmental violations.
The government has also announced renewed enforcement of litter laws and penalties.
Abrams welcomed those developments but raised a deeper question.
“When a young Guyanese has already identified the same problem, built a similar solution, and demonstrated the very thinking we say we want from our youth, do we simply move past her? Or do we bring her in?” Abrams asked. It is a powerful question.
Because Bacchus’ app was never just about litter. It was proof of concept. Proof that young Guyanese can identify national problems, build practical solutions and contribute meaningfully to development. Abrams said that is precisely the kind of thinking Guyana needs to cultivate. “The Maryam Bacchusses of Guyana are exactly who this country needs,” she wrote.
And perhaps that is why Bacchus’ journey matters so much now. In a country experiencing unprecedented economic growth, driven by oil revenues and expanding infrastructure, Bacchus’ story is a reminder that development is not only about roads, bridges and buildings. It is about people. It is about ideas. It is about creating systems that support innovation.
Abrams argues that innovation ecosystems are built when young talent is not ignored, but mentored, connected and given room to grow. Because the greatest thing Bacchus built may not have been the app itself. As Abrams put it: “The most valuable thing Maryam built was not only an app. She built proof that young Guyanese can see local problems clearly and imagine practical solutions.”
That proof matters because it shows what is possible when young people are empowered to act. Maryam Bacchus saw garbage. But where others saw a problem to complain about, she saw a problem to solve. And in doing so, she gave Guyana more than an app. She gave the country an example of what its future could look like—innovative, engaged and unafraid to tackle the problems others have learned to live with.
