Chioma Ukonu, Co-Founder of Recycle Points will represent Nigeria at the global level of the Chivas Social Impact Entrepreneurship Competition which is set to hold in after beating Destiny Federick, the Founder of EcoFuture and Charles Immanuel, of MOBicure.
The judges were thrilled with the social impact business ideas pitched at the grand finale competition held in Lagos as the three contestants, Chioma Ukonu, Destiny Federick and Charles Immanuel were rewarded with N1 Million, N500, 000 and N250, 000 respectively.
The social impact business idea from Recycle Points deals with the recovery of valuable materials disposed of by Nigerian engaged persons through a model built on a community-based waste processing enterprise called CoSoHUB (Collection and Sorting Hub).
Recycle Points collects waste via its waste busters initiative, creating youth employment in the process. The processing is done via its community-based collection and sorting hub(CoSoHub), where unemployed women in the community sort and bag the waste before it’s sold to recycling plants.
Recycle Point uses of electric cargo tricycles, to embark on the door-to-door collection of recyclable waste from registered subscribers in its Recycle Network.
Subscribers are rewarded based on their points for discarding plastics, pure water sachets, aluminum and steel cans, glass bottles, paper and cartons, obsolete electronics, expired tyres, condemned batteries, etc.
The four judges at the final competition include, Okekanu Nneka, Deputy Director, Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC); Audu Makori, a renowned and successful social entrepreneur; Peace Hyde is a TV Personality, Media Entrepreneur, and Forbes Africa Correspondent; Adesola Ladoja is the Managing Director Real Livestock Limited; Olivier Fages is the Managing Director of Pernod Ricard Nigeria.
Speaking with Journalists at the finale, Tobi Fasuyi, Brand Ambassador, Chivas Nigeria, she said it had been rigorous and strict filtering all the 226 businesses that applied for the 2016 Chivas Social Impact Entrepreneurship Competition.
All the entries were culled down to the five businesses, then finally the three most promising start-ups by our partners at the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) based on the ‘Sustainability, Scale and Social Impact’ of their respective businesses.
She said, Social impact is critical for us, we didn’t just look out for entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs and this is because making an impact in the society is part of our DNA just like the founding founders of Chivas showcased.
Meanwhile, Charles Immanuel, from MOBicure, presented OMOMI (meaning ‘my child’) a mobile application that allows women to monitor their children’s health, have access to health information, as well as medical expertise. OMOMI has already saved the lives of thousands of mothers and their children across Nigeria, with over 14,000 parents benefiting from the platform.
However, EcoFuture is quite similar to the idea pitched by Recycle Point, it is the collection of recyclable waste from household residents, government, and business establishments, waste is collected and channeled to a recovery facility where it goes through a sorting process through a compactor machine. The waste materials are packaged according to customer specifications and delivered through a third party logistics company.
