Two Nigerians were nominated for innovating problem solutions in Africa by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng). Victor Boyle Komolafe the CEO Garbage In Value Out is the only Nigerian male candidate shortlisted for the prize. His innovation GIVO is a tech solution that automates the collection, processing, and selling of recyclables. In a refreshing interview Victor Boyle Komolafe takes us in-depth in his journey so far and his future aspirations for GIVO.
As a Chartered Accountant, what inspired you to invent GIVO?
My professional training and qualification in accounting were more about what I did through University. And for part of my professional life, as an entrepreneur, I have been involved in various industries from Agriculture to technology and now recycle tech was inspired to create GIVO to solve the problem of waste management in Nigeria, especially when it relates to recyclables such as plastic bottles and beverage cans.
Engineers Forum would like to know more about your background
I have a background in accounting and finance, I am a chartered accountant. I schooled at the University of Liverpool and the University of Toronto. And I have been living in Lagos, Nigeria since about 2012. I worked in professional services in one of the big four accounting and auditing firms. And since 2016, I have been working for myself as an entrepreneur full time. I have a passion for projects and tasks that promote impact on a large scale. That has influenced my decisions in the companies I am involved in and what I do. My business interest right now is in the Agriculture space technology and again more recently and more importantly the recycle tech. Again the idea behind everything we do is trying to look at the status quo and find out how we can do something different to fix a common problem, across industries this is something that interests me. I think the training I had as an accountant helps me focus on numbers and see problems as numbers hence I think outside the box based on that.
How were you able to design such a system?
I have to say GIVO is a team project, it was a joint effort I can’t take all the credit. I have an amazing team behind me with diverse experience in business development technology and product development and so when we chose of getting into the recycle tech space, we leverage on everyone’s experience across the different countries we are based in and the different terrain we have been in. So we try to just provide a total end to end and comprehensive seed solution that caters for all the issues that were dropped on the table. So again I have to give credit to my team at capture solutions.
So far in the Nigerian context, how much success has GIVO attained?
We are in about ten African countries. So when we have projects like this. It is easier to leverage a wide team with diverse experience.
Right now in the Nigerian context, GIVO is still in its initial phases. We are all set and ready for our pilot that is supposed to be starting on a few locations on the Island. We have received various awards from different institutions such as faith foundations, and of course the Royal Academy. We have secured funding from the Dutch government and some funding and recognition from Coca-Cola through one of the projects they have. So for us, we have also intentionally tried to stay quiet and stay humble while we try and make progress on this solution that we are bringing to the market. So right now it is still a bit under wrap but in the next few months, you will be seeing a lot more of us.
Presently, who are your major competitors and what unique edge does GIVO have over them?
As for competitors, I find this as a very interesting question. So right now in Nigeria, we collect less than ten per cent of the recyclables we consume. In that sense all the competitors in total fit within ten per cent. Again there is such a largely untapped market that I feel that right now there is not a lot of competition. The competition is all of us in this market, we need to move these numbers and get to a larger percentage of collections. So right now the only way to do that is to consider many of our competitors in the quote as collaborators. In this industry, we tend to collaborate a lot more to create an impact. But regarding the question and the unique edges GIVO has over all the competitors in this market, our USBs are the technology we have. What else GIVO does is, it enables modular processing, monitoring and sale of pet material. Now there is no one else in the market that has such automation and digitization of their activities. Yes, this is our major differentiator and this is why we are more scalable than other waste management businesses in Nigeria.
If GIVO is fully implemented in the nation Nigeria, what deliverables does it promise the economy?
When fully implemented in Nigeria, which will be 2020 fourth quarter. We expect that each unit will have a lot of advantages in the community it is located. Number one each unit is expected to collect at least 90 metric tons of recyclable waste from each community, that will also create about ten direct and indirect jobs per GIVO centre per year in each community. That will also generate about 9 million naira in revenue and recyclable sales and again providing financial benefits of over 9 million naira per community and these are some of the impact and benefits that GIVO will have on communities across Nigeria
Apart from your chances of bagging the RA engineering prize money, what other benefit do you plan to leverage on as a nominee?
Apart from getting the Royal Academy money, the opportunity for me is just about expanding our Network and showing what we have been working on to a wider audience. One of the things we have done in the last few months is to work a lot and work in silence. We have put our heart and soul into this project we have spoken with our stakeholders, signed up partners and the mode we are in is to try and build as many relevant partners that will contribute key resources towards the success of GIVO when it eventually gets into the market fourth quarter of 2020.
How do you plan to upgrade GIVO in the next few months to emerge as the prize winner from 13 other participants across the continent?
Over the next few months my team and I will start to kick off the GIVO projects, we have about three lined up and the first one will start in the first quarter of this year. We also plan over the next few months to introduce our upgrade to our technology which is an OCR recognition software that will enable the shredders that the material go through to capture the refuse that passes through it. So, in essence, the upgrade will enable us to determine the polluters or the content of our collections. We will be able to tell the bottles that this came from by installing the technology in our workings. Now this will give us key data to enable us to understand about producer responsibility in an area about consumer patterns in an area, even about the consumption of particular beverages in a particular area. We are looking up to putting the upgrade in the next few months.
In the next five years, we have distilled our plan for GIVO in a simple sentence. We want to collect a hundred and fifty million containers plastic bottles and beverage cans directly from households, business offices, individuals across Nigeria and so that is the goal of what we want to do. This is to make recycling, convenient profitable and sustainable even while we are carrying out this goal that we have.
