Recyclepoints crowned Nigeria’s winner of ‘The Venture’

…Joins others for Chivas Regal’s $1 million competition for social enterprise

RecyclePoints, an incentive based recycling scheme that deploys the use of electric cargo tricycles, the first of its kind in Nigeria, has been announced as the Nigeria winner of The Venture, Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky’s global competition to find and support the most exciting social enterprises.
Recently saw the exciting conclusion to the finals in Lagos, where Chioma Ukonu, Co-founder of RecyclePoints, scooped the N1 million prize money and bespoke business mentoring. RecyclePoints will represent Nigeria in the Global Final in Los Angeles in July 2017, where she will compete with social entrepreneurs from 31 countries across six continents for a share of the $1 million in funding to take their business to the next level.
Ahead of the Global Final, RecylePoints will also attend The Venture’s Accelerator Week at the Skoll Center-Oxford University, UK in the March where the global finalists will take part in intensive business master classes and receive expert mentoring from some of the biggest and most influential names in business.
The Nigeria final, held at the prestigious InterContinental Hotel saw the three shortlisted finalists pitch to a team of industry leaders which included: Audu Maikori (President Choc City Group), Shola Ladoja (Founder Simply Green Juice), Peace Hyde (Award winning journalist and West Africa Correspondent, Forbes), Nneka Okekaru (Deputy Director, Enterprise Development Centre), Olivier Fages (Managing Director, Pernod Ricard Nigeria). RecyclePoints impressed the judging panel with its potential scalability and a solid financial inclusion model.
Accepting the award, Chioma Ukonu, founder of RecyclePoints, admitted “My partner and I are absolutely delighted to have been chosen as Nigeria’s winners. For us, this initiative offers the incredible opportunity to receive world-class business mentoring and global publicity, which could help us reach reach 1million homes by 2017 and establish our business in an additional five states within the Federation.
Audu Maikori, part of the panel who picked the winner said, “RecylePoints’ business model was really impressive. They have already witnessed an increase of 70 per cent with the introduction of the electric cargo tricycles and their plan to introduce the iRecycle kiosk in the coming year, which will create further jobs for the youth and women around the continent, is unique.