One Person’s Trash May Be Another Person’s Treasure

Story of Michael Denton Win

Hello everyone. It’s such a pleasure to be here in Suzhou.

It took me nearly two flights and a high-speed train to get here.

I’m from Myanmar, but I’ve studied Chinese since I was a child and have always loved Chinese culture.

So today, I’m challenging myself — to give my first-ever public speech in Chinese.

My full name is Michael Denton Win, but in Myanmar, many people call me “Uncle Bicycle.”

I founded a non-profit organization called LessWalk.

I was born in 1985 in Mandalay, during Myanmar’s military government era, when education was very underdeveloped.

In 1994, when I was eight, my mother decided to send me to study in Singapore.

In 2008, I graduated from the Nanyang Technological University Business School.

When Myanmar began major political and economic reforms in 2011, I decided in 2012 to return home and start a business.

Even as a student, I was never one to follow the standard path.

Besides studying, I founded an internet company, but it was too early for the market, and it didn’t go far.

When I first came back, Myanmar’s internet was still slow,

so I started with traditional trade.

As the economy grew, my company expanded from 28 employees to over 500.

In 2015, my first major opportunity came:

I sold a large part of my company to a listed firm in Singapore — and earned my first fortune.

That rapid growth brought tremendous changes to Myanmar.

Take mobile phones for example:

before, we were on the same level as North Korea —

but after opening up, the number of users jumped from 2 million to 55 million.

Today, our internet speed is second only to Singapore, faster than Bangkok, Jakarta, or Kuala Lumpur.

So in 2015, I returned to the field I loved most — the internet.

Even now, our company remains one of the most active internet enterprises in Myanmar.

After returning, because of work and travel, I often drove long distances.

And every time I drove through the countryside, I saw rows of children walking —

to school or back home —

sometimes walking one or even two hours each way.

They were so sensitive to the sound of engines:

when a motorcycle or tractor passed by, they’d look up, hoping for a ride.

If they were lucky, someone would give them a lift.

I myself often stopped to pick up and drop off students.

Those encounters moved me deeply.

After Myanmar opened up, education became free —

as long as a child could reach school,

no teacher would turn them away, no matter how old or torn their uniform was.

But could a child really endure walking three or four hours every day?

Why did they have to walk so far?

In Myanmar, each time students advance — from primary to middle to high school —

the schools become larger and more centralized.

Most families live next to their farmland, because we’re an agricultural society.

That means schools are often 8–10 kilometers away.

If a child had a motorcycle or bicycle, it would be easy.

But the real problem is poverty.

According to UNICEF, 55% of children in Myanmar live in poverty.

Most families earn less than 500–600 RMB per month,

while even a used bicycle costs 150–200 RMB.

They simply cannot afford one.

So their choices are limited:

either walk, or drop out.

Because of that, Myanmar has the highest dropout rate in Southeast Asia —

one in five children quits school.

In wealthy urban areas, the dropout risk is around 5%.

But in rural regions, it jumps to 20%,

and in conflict-affected or extremely poor provinces,

it can exceed 80%.

In the countryside, parents think simply:

“If it’s too hard, just stop going.”

But that single decision can end a child’s chance at education for life.

I kept thinking — if only I could give them a bicycle.

It could change everything.

But a brand-new bike in Myanmar costs 700–800 RMB.

To buy 10,000 bikes would cost around 8 million RMB, far beyond my means.

Then a miracle happened.

In 2018, Singapore’s shared-bicycle company oBike declared bankruptcy.

As you might imagine, users lost their deposits,

and thousands of bicycles were abandoned worldwide.

I thought: This is my chance.

I contacted the bankruptcy lawyers,

wrote them an email explaining my plan passionately.

But they didn’t share my excitement.

They asked me to buy the bikes at 50 RMB each,

collect them all within a limited time,

and even pay several thousand RMB in legal fees.

I was frustrated —

“I’m trying to help you solve a problem, and you’re charging me for it?”

So I gave up.

By the end of 2018,

those abandoned bikes were sent to scrapyards in Singapore.

Seeing that on the news, I was angry — not at them, but at myself.

Angry that I hadn’t saved those resources,

angry that I couldn’t give those bicycles to students who needed them.

Unexpectedly, in February 2019,

the giants Ofo and Mobike announced their withdrawal from overseas markets,

retrieving millions of bikes from around the world.

I said to myself: This is my second chance.

Ofo’s scale was hundreds of times larger than oBike’s,

and soon news broke of its financial troubles.

This time, I swore I would not let the opportunity pass —

no matter how hard it would be.

On March 1st, I posted an appeal online:

“Hello everyone, I want to buy 10,000 bicycles.

If you know anyone who can help, please connect me.”

By late March and April,

many logistics and storage companies that had been holding Ofo’s bikes overseas contacted me.

For example, in Osaka, thousands of new Ofo bikes sat unused in warehouses,

turning into bad debt.

Shipping them back to China was nearly impossible —

the cost, customs, and logistics were too high.

And with bikes piling up worldwide,

storage costs were increasing every month.

So they reached out to me and agreed to sell the bikes for 100 RMB each.

My dream was finally coming true.

I began purchasing from warehouses across multiple countries

and soon reached 10,000 bicycles.

On May 1st, the first shipment arrived at Yangon Port in Myanmar.

Just as I prepared to celebrate, my nightmare began.

Customs refused to believe my declared price —

“100 RMB per bike? Impossible!”

They suspected smuggling or tax evasion.

For three to four weeks, I argued and presented every contract.

Eventually, they believed me and cleared the goods —

but by then, the containers had sat so long at the port

that I was fined 50–60,000 RMB,

a painful loss for me.

But I can’t blame them.

If someone had told me a year earlier that they bought brand-new Ofo bikes for 100 RMB each,

I’d think they were lying.

Ironically, without e-commerce bubbles and reckless investment,

this miracle wouldn’t have happened at all.

After customs clearance in June,

we moved the first batch to our warehouse in Yangon.

But giving them out wasn’t simple.

Step one: we removed the smart locks — useless in rural Myanmar —

and replaced them with ordinary locks.

Step two: we added rear seats for passengers.

Each seat cost about 10 RMB.

We bought over 1,000 at once, emptying the entire market supply.

The vendors were stunned —

I told them I still needed 8,000 more.

So our bikes ended up with mismatched backseats —

some black, some silver, some comfortable, some hard.

But with a backseat, one bike could carry two students,

doubling its impact.

After distributing the first 1,000–2,000 bikes, we discovered a mistake.

We thought replacing smart locks with normal locks would be useful.

But in fact, most students never locked their bikes at all.

There’s no theft in rural villages.

We were thinking with an urban mindset.

So we stopped installing locks altogether —

saving both money and resources.

People asked, “Who exactly gets the bikes?

Are you sure they go to those most in need?”

Of course, there were never enough.

Myanmar has 9 million students,

1 million have already dropped out,

and many more are at risk.

Ten thousand bicycles are just a drop in the ocean.

So we set clear criteria:

1. Students who walk more than two hours to school daily.

2. Families with no vehicle of any kind.

3. Orphans or single-parent families get priority.

Myanmar is a deeply Buddhist country where people believe in karma,

so cheating is rare.

One school with 1,000 students applied for only 30 bicycles.

I asked the principal, “Are you sure you don’t need more?”

He said, “If we take extra, we’ll deprive another child who needs it more.”

I was moved and heartbroken at once.

Then came the hardest part — delivery.

Shared bikes were meant to solve the “last mile,”

but for us, the last mile was the greatest challenge.

We ignored transport cost completely:

if a school met the criteria, no matter how far,

we delivered.

Myanmar’s roads are rough.

We used all kinds of transport —

trucks, old timber lorries, tractors, even boats —

to reach islands and remote villages.

Sometimes roads were too narrow,

so kids rode tractors to meet our trucks and carried the bikes home themselves.

It was exhausting,

but seeing children’s faces light up —

some even crying with joy —

made it all worth it.

Earlier this month, in southern Myanmar near the Thai border,

a principal ran up to me, nearly breathless,

and said, “Thank you so much!”

The day before, a top student’s parents had come to withdraw her —

the school was too far.

The principal told them, “Wait! Tomorrow she’ll get a bike.”

And she did.

Some people questioned:

“What happens after you give out the bikes?

Where will they buy parts?

Who will fix them when they break?”

It’s a fair concern, but not realistic.

In rural Myanmar, bicycles are already the main form of transport.

Children are resourceful — they treasure everything.

If a brake pad breaks, they cut an old tire to replace it.

In places of abundance, we can’t imagine how precious resources are to them.

My real worry wasn’t parts or repair shops —

every village has one —

but the solid tires of shared bikes.

Solid tires last long and need no maintenance,

but when they eventually wear out,

replacements are expensive and unavailable locally.

So before distribution, we ran an experiment.

We removed a solid tire, fitted a normal inflatable tire,

drilled a hole in the rim for the valve, and — it worked perfectly.

We filmed the process and made a small manual

so students could replace them themselves someday.

We calculated the impact:

each student who used to walk two hours daily could save 1.5 hours a day.

About 60% of them would carry another child.

So, ideally, one bicycle could save over 400 hours of walking time per year.

More time means less dropout, better study performance,

higher chances of continuing education —

perhaps a good job, a higher income,

and, through education, an escape from poverty.

Environmentally, too, the project mattered.

Each reused bike saves 14.1 kg of steel and 2.75 kg of rubber.

Ten thousand bikes saved over 140 tons of steel and 20 tons of rubber.

At first, I planned to stop at 10,000 bikes —

I’m an entrepreneur, with limited time and funds.

But every story touched me.

I told myself, maybe this shouldn’t end here.

I hope to expand to 100,000 bicycles within five years.

I can’t do it alone.

After international media coverage,

organizations from many countries reached out —

for example, the Netherlands,

where bicycles outnumber people.

The Dutch government decided to donate bikes to us,

so now we’re transitioning from buying to receiving donations.

Companies from China and the United States also joined,

and so far, over 7,000 additional bikes have been donated.

We still need to handle packing, shipping, and refitting —

so there’s much more work ahead.

From that vague idea in March

to bikes arriving in Yangon in June,

we’ve brought bicycles from six countries to Myanmar.

As a Burmese citizen, my focus remains at home —

I want to give back to my own country.

But once the story spread,

entrepreneurs from Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Ghana contacted me.

They faced the same problems.

I shared everything — suppliers, logistics, challenges, lessons.

Now several have started bringing bikes to their own countries.

People often ask, “Uncle Bicycle, do you only do bicycles?”

For now, yes — my focus is education and bikes.

But if we think bigger, there’s so much more we could do.

For instance, Japan’s aging population means there are many unused wheelchairs.

They’re expensive, yet hospitals in poor countries can’t afford them.

If we could transport those wheelchairs to where they’re needed,

it would be a perfect win-win.

Another touching story:

after hearing about our project,

an international school in Singapore emailed me.

They were renovating and replacing 300 sets of American-made desks and chairs,

each worth hundreds of dollars.

They wanted to donate them to rural schools.

But shipping costs — packing, transport, customs —

were higher than buying new desks locally.

Many people said, “Then just buy new ones.”

But I find that attitude sad.

We can’t measure everything with money.

Every resource we waste is non-renewable.

The essence of charity, I believe,

is reuse and redistribution —

taking surplus resources from the developed world

and giving them to those who truly need them in the developing world.

So next time you’re about to throw something away,

remember: what seems like trash to you

might be a treasure to someone else.

Thank you.