NTU Graduate Bought 10,000 ofo & Obike Bicycles to Give to The Poor in Myanmar

No one in 2017 would have expected that two years later, the streets of Singapore would no longer be peppered with countless yellow and orange bikes.

Instead, we’re now faced with a new problem: speeding PMDs that crash into people and glass door. But that’s for another article.

Lest you’re not aware, all the major bike-sharing companies have left Singapore—oBike ghosted users last June and disappeared from the scene all of a sudden, ofo started to ghost users in end 2018 and officially called it quits when they also ghosted the authorities, and Mobike formally bailed out in March this year when they requested to surrender their bike-sharing licence.

It’s unknown how the bicycles disappeared from our streets since the companies literally just MIA-ed, though the authorities could have come in to clear the bikes (while invoicing the defunct companies, of course).

No much is known about where those bikes went to, but now, we get to know the fate of 10,000 of them.

Meet Mike Than Tun Win, the hero we need but don’t deserve.

Lesswalk Movement

Mike is a Burmese who has lived and studied in Singapore since he was eight, going to Victoria School and then Temasek Junior College, and then finally graduating in NTU with a Major in Marketing and a Minor in Entrepreneurship.

After staying in Singapore for eighteen years, he went back to Myanmar in 2011 to start a tech company, and according to his bio, he has also “founded multiple companies across Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar within sectors as diverse as petrochemicals, logistics, and automotive.”

Also, we’re quite certain that he’s still been following the news in Singapore.

Upon knowing about the demise of bike-sharing companies, Mike started the Lesswalk Movement, which “import and purchase excess capacity of brand new and used bicycles globally at low price into Myanmar.”

Here, a picture speaks a thousand words:

The idea is that children in the rural villages in Myanmar have to walk 30 minutes to 1 hour to get to school, and with a bicycle, that travelling time can be cut down, giving them more time for “studying, gain more knowledge and increase their chances of getting out of poverty.”

But it’s not a walk in a park.

Buy with Own Money, Remove Logo & Digital Locks

Mike was inspired after reading about the “bicycle graveyards” in China. Lest you’re not aware, this trend of bike-sharing bubble burst doesn’t affect just Singapore but globally as well.

He had then travelled to China in hope of procuring the bicycles but somehow did not manage to get any.

So he set his sight to the place he’s grown up in: Singapore.

Seeing that the quality and condition of the bikes were even better here (hard to believe, isn’t it?!), he bought them from warehouse sales and auctions.

In total, he bought 10,000 of them from Singapore and Malaysia, and on average each cost about $20 each.

He paid for with his own money for 5,000 of the bikes and the rest were sponsored by other companies run by his friends.

But it wasn’t smooth sailing: for a start, he had to remove the logo for legal purposes and modify the digital locks to manual ones. He’d also have to add a seat as young Burmese usually cycle with their younger siblings. And thirdly, he had to pay higher customs taxes as the officials in Yangon allegedly questioned his intentions due to the low value and high quality of the bikes.

All in all, each bike would have an additional cost of $55 to $68—which includes shipping, modification and distribution.

With the cost price of $20, each bike can go up to $88. That’s expensive.

Bikes Flying Over

Just last weekend, he received his first batch of 3,300 bikes that were sent over to Yangon from Malaysia.

He’s expecting to receive another 1,000 bikes today.

For his progress, you can check out the Lesswalk Movement here.

I don’t know about you, but all I’m thinking of after reading about this movement is how privileged we Singaporeans are.

Because if there’s such a movement for Singaporeans, it would mean we’d Grab more so that we’d walk less.