Innovation Demo Day: International Food Waste Reduction Solutions

Ady is the co-founder & CEO of Nilus. He has a law degree from Harvard Law School and over 10 years of experience at the Inter-American Development Bank designing and leading impact-driven technology projects, such as ConnectAmericas.com. Ady was awarded Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2023 by the Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum.

Uzochukwu Mbamalu is an accomplished Solar PV Engineer with over a decade of experience deploying solar PV systems and offgrid electrification projects in Nigeria. His extensive work in the solar industry exposed him to the critical challenge of providing reliable electricity to power cold chains for agricultural produce, especially in regions with limited infrastructure. This experience ignited Uzochukwu’s passion for sustainable energy solutions and their potential to revolutionize the global agricultural supply chain. During his time as a Mandela Washington Fellow at the University of Nevada-Reno, Uzochukwu conceived the visionary idea of ColdBox Store. This innovative concept integrates with off-grid solar energy projects, providing them with a productive use component that captures value from food production clusters which was previously not captured due to food loss  and leveraging this newly captured value to increase incomes generated by food producers and off-grid electrification projects.

Communications expert converted to Entrepreneur. Working with smallholder farmers in Kenya to reduce food waste. Since establishment in September 2014, the company has worked with small holder farmers in, Kenya produced and sold high quality produce for export to EU. The company won four awards including Sinapis Business plan competition at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2014, Gender in Innovation in Agriculture Award 2016 and Social Impact Award in Nairobi Innovation week 2017 and most recently selected among Top 50 innovators in Africa at the Africa Innovation Summit 2018. My focus is to improve the food security in Africa through reduction of food waste and empowering youth and women in agribusiness by sharing my story.

My first love was journalism and communication. I worked as a journalist on radio and newspaper for two years and decided to use communication to help communities make informed decisions, This decision led to over 16 years’ experience in international organizations as a development communication specialist .

Companies reach out to me for short-term communication consultancy assignments which I am happy to take up if the cause is aligned to my vision of a better Africa.