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The app helping feed Nigeria’s hungry
Growing up Oscar Ekponimo was familiar with hunger. After his father had a partial stroke, he was temporarily ill and left unable to work, greatly impacting the family income and the amount of food in the family home.
Pictured: Oscar Ekponimo
Rolex SA/Tomas Bertelsen
"I remember vividly how having access to quality meals was a big challenge at the time," he told CNN. "I remember most times there was little or no food [in the house], I had to go to school without food and got by with snacks friends shared with me."
Rolex SA/Tomas Bertelsen
"I always said sometime in the future I would do something to empower people to ensure others wouldn't go through what I went through." Fast forward to 2017 and Ekponimo, a software engineer, is doing exactly that, through his app Chowberry.
Rolex SA/Tomas Bertelsen
The app connects supermarkets to NGOs and low-income earners, allowing them to purchase leftover food that is near the end of its shelf life at a discounted rate. Food that would normally be wasted is instead sold at a discount to those in need.
Tomas Bertelsen
Last year Chowberry ran a successful pilot scheme and is now functional in Lagos and Abuja, with 20 local retailers on board and three NGO's that work with orphanages and vulnerable people in communities where "poverty is rife."
Rolex SA/Tomas Bertelsen
After winning a Rolex Award for Enterprise last year Ekponimo is hoping to expand "scale the app nationally" and potentially expand it to regions across the continent.