Ifeoma Malo is the gimper for African renewable energy

 By Chido Nwakanma I Thursday, July 18, 2024

 

LAGOS, Nigeria – Her resume broke the Internet when this writer published it as part of an Executive Bookshelf interview in BusinessDay in 2018. 

Ifeoma Malo has gone on to do many significant things. She has become the gimper for African renewable energy and a foremost personality in green energy, climate change, and the positive deployment of alternatives to fossil fuels.

Gimper? The Urban Dictionary defines it as Someone who hates mediocrity, an overachiever who always does his/her best in everything and is not satisfied with “it’s okay”; it has to be “it’s great!”.

I first encountered gimper in Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez, that powerful little book that remains a New York Times Bestseller.

Malo and her social enterprise, Clean Technology Hub (CTH), drive many initiatives in renewable energy. Their pace is fast, the range is broad, and the impact is substantial.

For instance, CTH will host experts on 31 July to interrogate the situation and prepare Nigeria for the anticipated changes caused by evolving climatic conditions at the Climate Conflict and Fragility Conference.

Fifty-one schools and 248 students participated, and 21 exhibited innovative concepts and prototypes for local climate solutions at the CTH-organised first Nigerian Students’ Climate Summit at the Yaradua Centre in Abuja in July. Clean Technology Hub arranged it with the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation. The African Policy Research Institute (APRI), Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), and Surge Africa Organisation generously supported the summit. 

The Clean Tech Innovation Challenge of the Summit highlighted youth-led projects offering feasible solutions to climate change and sustainability in Nigeria. Projects showcased innovative ideas, including waste-to-wealth initiatives, renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate-smart agriculture, climate robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and circular economy practices. Four schools won for their projects and received cash awards: i) Government Secondary School Kubwa, first, received N150,000; ii. Government Science Technical College Garki, second, and won N120,000; iii. Nigerian Tulip International Girls’ College was third and won N100,000; iv. Springhall British School came in fourth and won N70,000.

Ifeoma Malo is a prominent Nigerian lawyer widely recognised for her work in international development, mainly focused on clean energy access and climate change solutions in Africa. She is the Nigerian Amazon for African renewables. 

She has proven expertise in clean energy technologies, energy access, climate change mitigation and adaptation in Africa. Malo has over 23 years of experience building and directing organisational strategy in energy, women’s entrepreneurship, and leadership development. 

As the CEO and Co-Founder of Clean Technology Hub Nigeria, Ifeoma Malo leads a pioneering organisation that supports clean energy research, development, and implementation. Her leadership and the Hub’s innovative work drive significant change in green energy and climate change.

About that resume? Ngozi Ifeoma Malo is a Desmond Tutu Fellow, Eisenhower Fellow, Acumen Fellow, and Aspen New Voices Fellow, and holds several other prestigious fellowships. She earned the Power Industry Leader of the Year in 2020.

She has a broad and deep education. She obtained a law degree from the University of Ibadan and another from Harvard University. While in Massachusetts, she also enrolled at the University of Massachusetts and earned master’s degrees in Dispute Resolution and Information Technology. She left that city with three master’s degrees. She also worked as an associate at the Boston Public Health Commission and as an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

In Nigeria, she worked as a deputy head of intellectual property at George Ikoli and Okagbue and later as a senior manager at the Negotiation and Conflict Management Group. 

In 2015, she served as the chief of staff and senior technical adviser on energy policies, regulations and partnerships to Prof. Chinedu Nebo, the former Nigerian Minister of Power. 

She leveraged these to establish the Clean Tech Hub and Energy Innovation Centre, Abuja, in 2016. Clean Tech Hub is a pioneering hybrid hub. CTH drives sustainable development across Africa by addressing energy poverty, environmental degradation, climate change, and social inequality. It drives various initiatives, including research, policy and governance support, gender and livelihood programs, enterprise development, advocacy, and capacity development. 

CTH executes its community-level programs, including rural and peri-urban settlements, and targets women, youth, and vulnerable groups. Its work aligns with Nigeria’s vision to achieve the 2030 goals by contributing to the eradication of poverty (SDG 1), promoting decent jobs and a green economy (SDG 8), and strengthening the nation’s quest to build sustainable and resilient communities (SDGs 11), increase climate action (SDG 13), and achieve partnerships for the goals (SDG 17). 

With “a robust database of 300 civil society organisations, market associations, community groups, skill centres, faith-based institutions, academia, and external experts involved in grassroots mobilisation, CTH is an ecosystem builder. CTH belongs to several industry associations, coalitions and networks, including the Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria (REAN), Green Economy Coalition (GEC), Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cooking (NACC), African E-Mobility Alliance (AfEMA), Innovation Support Network (ISN), AfriLabs, and Climate Finance Investment Network (CFIN).

CTH has won several industry awards for its ecosystem-building efforts, including the REAN 2023 EMobility Champion of the Year Award, the REAN 2023 Renewable Energy Policy Advocate Award, the 2023 Africa Women Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) Energy Entrepreneur Award, and the ISN Ecosystem Leader Awards.

Its broad portfolio serves as a canopy for players in renewable energy. Programmes and events enable networking. 

Upcoming are the Mini-Grid Sector Forum in August, the West Africa E-mobility Conference on 14-15 October, and the Hydrogen Capacity Building Workshop. CTH will partner with FG officials in Reviving The Green Wall, the suspended programme to save Northern Nigeria from deforestation by planting a green wall of trees and fauna.

Ifeoma is driving CTH deeper into several African countries, including the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya. Sustainability and impact are critical words in the CEO’s vocabulary and represent her hopes and dreams.

Sustainability efforts include extensive and intensive training for the team of eager young managers who work in CTH.

Ms Malo states, “We are driving the frontiers of new energies and climate action spaces in Africa, including electric mobility, green hydrogen, climate-smart agriculture, gender, and livelihoods.”