Start-up firm to make cleaning high-rises easy: Doha, Qatar• When a window washer working on a building on Grand Hamad Street fell to his death in front of a would-be entrepreneur, it got him and his four business partners thinking. The end result is KlearGreen, a high-technology start-up formed to develop robotic facade and window cleaning systems for high-rise buildings. 
Doha's rising skyline meant an instant business idea. And lessons were learned from participating in Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar's Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme. What the quintet plans to do is bring in machinery to do the job of window washing in tall buildings. The machinery can be used not only on buildings with glass facades but other surfaces as well. Moreover, the machinery can be programmed to wash every nook and cranny of a building's exterior by tailoring it to the contours of the building. It also eliminates the need for labour and the job is completed much faster. Buildings these days are no longer square blocks, with Bidda Towers and the Tornado Tower here being examples of the changes taking place in building design. Shams Hasan, one of the partners in the venture, told The Peninsula: "In our group, we have real estate expertise, Qatar expertise and technology expertise. We felt the window washing business had a serious need and we had to solve it. Our technology is different. Building physics change and mechanics become difficult." As one goes higher up a building, there is a 'sway' factor, for example. Workers are also unwilling to kiss the clouds as buildings rise higher and higher. Those who wash windows on high-rises are paid around three times as much as a regular worker and they have to be provided insurance, all of which adds to the costs of a company. It can take a crew of up to eight to work on a single building. Another partner, Sami Al Shammari, said: "With this device we can clean faster and more securely. It is also about speed, and a building can be washed more times." Under normal circumstances, it can take up to a month to finish washing a building. Hasan said: "We looked at it from a logical perspective and not as window cleaners. We feel this is the right place to get things moving and we have the right expertise." He said the group was hopeful of setting up an office at the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP). KlearGreen would perhaps be an ideal tenant as it exemplifies the spirit of entrepreneurship and research which the QSTP is keen to promote. Best of all, it is a local enterprise. The new machines could also have uses in fighting fires. "You will have noted lately there have been several fires in the new high-rises. But how high could the fire department's ladders go? So, with the new machines, firefighting could conceivably be another option for their use," said Hasan. The machines will have three versions. The first will be human-operated, the second semi-automated and the third fully-automated. To have the machines built — KlearGreen is tying up with Telerobot of Italy — $600,000 will be required. Hasan and Al Shammari are confident KlearGreen will receive the funding needed.
Doha's rising skyline meant an instant business idea. And lessons were learned from participating in Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar's Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme. What the quintet plans to do is bring in machinery to do the job of window washing in tall buildings. The machinery can be used not only on buildings with glass facades but other surfaces as well. Moreover, the machinery can be programmed to wash every nook and cranny of a building's exterior by tailoring it to the contours of the building. It also eliminates the need for labour and the job is completed much faster. Buildings these days are no longer square blocks, with Bidda Towers and the Tornado Tower here being examples of the changes taking place in building design. Shams Hasan, one of the partners in the venture, told The Peninsula: "In our group, we have real estate expertise, Qatar expertise and technology expertise. We felt the window washing business had a serious need and we had to solve it. Our technology is different. Building physics change and mechanics become difficult." As one goes higher up a building, there is a 'sway' factor, for example. Workers are also unwilling to kiss the clouds as buildings rise higher and higher. Those who wash windows on high-rises are paid around three times as much as a regular worker and they have to be provided insurance, all of which adds to the costs of a company. It can take a crew of up to eight to work on a single building. Another partner, Sami Al Shammari, said: "With this device we can clean faster and more securely. It is also about speed, and a building can be washed more times." Under normal circumstances, it can take up to a month to finish washing a building. Hasan said: "We looked at it from a logical perspective and not as window cleaners. We feel this is the right place to get things moving and we have the right expertise." He said the group was hopeful of setting up an office at the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP). KlearGreen would perhaps be an ideal tenant as it exemplifies the spirit of entrepreneurship and research which the QSTP is keen to promote. Best of all, it is a local enterprise. The new machines could also have uses in fighting fires. "You will have noted lately there have been several fires in the new high-rises. But how high could the fire department's ladders go? So, with the new machines, firefighting could conceivably be another option for their use," said Hasan. The machines will have three versions. The first will be human-operated, the second semi-automated and the third fully-automated. To have the machines built — KlearGreen is tying up with Telerobot of Italy — $600,000 will be required. Hasan and Al Shammari are confident KlearGreen will receive the funding needed. "After Qatar, we may even look at places like Dubai and then the US and Europe," the partners said.
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