A Nigerian start-up company, OkwuEco, has recently launched the "OkwuEco" market platform to facilitate the disposal of solid waste and encourage recycling in Nigeria. It is still in its experimental phase.
How can waste management be simplified and recycling encouraged in Nigeria? That’ is the issue that the young Nigerian start-up OkwuEco is trying to tackle. It has just launched the “OkwuEco” market platform to facilitate the disposal of solid waste and encourage recycling. Available on Google Play, the application is still in its experimental phase. It should gradually gain momentum following the minimum viable product (MVP) method: by confronting it with the market to improve and enrich it in an agile and interactive way.
The application should be fully deployed at the end of the tests. “We have been negotiating with various waste management associations and government agencies about scaling up operations. Adoption has been an interesting journey for us in terms of learning, improving our business capacity and exposure to real market issues,” says OkwuEco co-founder Saviour Anyanwu. “We are open and user-friendly, with support for multiple languages and different payment options, which is ideal for targeting the unbanked to bring value to them,” Anyanwu says.
The OkwuEco platform is based in Jos, the capital of Plateau State in central Nigeria. “Our platform uses state-of-the-art technology to help users identify, sort their waste and connect with waste collectors or waste disposal services. It is flexible, easy to deploy anywhere, without customization, and offers convenience, performance, stable pricing and reduced cost of waste management and recycling,” said Saviour Anyanwu, co-founder of OkwuEco. OkwuEco makes money by charging a percentage on transactions made through its platform, while merchants also pay a subscription fee.
Another advantage of using OkwuEco is its impact tools, which provide useful information for user engagement and decision making. The portal also uses GPS (Global Positioning System) to facilitate logistics, to manage payments and for data collection to obtain useful information… which could pose a problem of respect for personal data.
Inès Magoum
