Abstract

Social entrepreneur Chinyere Nnadi (Nnadi), Co-founder & CEO of Sustainability International (SI), had started his non-profit organisation to provide innovative solutions using technology to alleviate poverty in Africa. Since childhood Nnadi had beheld adversity in Nigeria that had been grappling with oil pollution due to decades of oil drilling and spills in the Niger Delta.  Nnadi observed that the environmental damages in Nigeria had resulted in the loss of livelihoods of farmers and fishermen, causing appalling public health hazards and mass unemployment. To end this misfortune, Nnadi’s SI team launched various projects ranging from infrastructure developments to providing education to girls and creating healthcare awareness. SI had also partnered with various government agencies, companies and NGOs and was using breakthrough technologies such as BIOCLEAN™ Biotechnology to restore the oil-contaminated sites. When Nnadi observed that widespread systematic corruption and distrusts among locals in Nigeria could hamper his initiatives, he started focusing more on utilising breakthrough technologies in his projects.  Towards this end, Nnadi’s SI collaborated with ‘Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition’, an initiative of the US based ConsenSys in mid-2017 to cleanup the Niger Delta and eventually improve the socio-economic condition of Nigeria. Would Nnadi be able to realise his dream of  alleviating corruption, poverty and improve the socio-economic condition of the region? Would SI be able to ‘solve the 20^th century problems with 21^st century solutions’ in Africa?