MASTER’S SUCCESSFUL STORIES: Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu
My name is Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, I live in Owerri, Imo State in the southeastern part of Nigeria. I am an agriculturist and presently run a social enterprise, ColdHubs.
ColdHubs Ltd. (www.coldhubs.com) is a social enterprise that designs, installs, commissions, and operates 100% solar-powered 3tons, 10tons and 100tons walk-in cold rooms branded as “ColdHubs”, in markets and farm clusters. The Hubs are used by smallholder farmers, retailers, and wholesalers, to store and preserve fresh fruits, vegetables, and other perishable foods 24/7, extending their shelf life from 2 days to 21 days.
ColdHubs is solving the problem of food spoilage due to the lack of a cold chain at key points along the food supply chain in Nigeria.
In addition to deploying cold storages, ColdHubs offers world class refrigerated transportation service using a fleet of remotely monitored, brand new 10 and 20tons refrigerated trucks and 3.5 tons vans to maintain the integrity of fresh produce during distribution.
ColdHubs produces returnable plastic crates for the appropriate packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables. The crates are specially designed to optimize supply chain and logistics operations. They are stackable, durable, and lightweight, making them ideal for transporting goods efficiently, reducing transportation costs, and minimizing fresh produce damages.
ColdHubs ColdConnect Mobile Application enables customers to order and monitor cold storage, refrigerated transportation and packaging materials virtually.
Beyond technology, ColdHubs tackles limited awareness and knowledge base of food supply chain actors by organizing and imparting on them, comprehensive skills and knowledge on post-harvest management of perishable food using local language educational comics which educates them on best harvest methods, handling, sorting and grading, packing using returnable plastic crates, on-farm cooling, packing house, best practices in transportation, storage and preservation to avoid spoilage in the market, managing spoilage during sales, the ColdHubs advantage, nutritional value of high-quality fruits and vegetables and financial gains due to high-quality fruits and vegetables.
My Masters experience was the best possible experience I could have asked for! It is an unforgettable experience that moulded me into who I am today. On the academics side, it sharpened my thoughts, knowledge and skills on international development and cooperation. The classes on Project Management and Human Development gave me the confidence and competence to develop award winning grant applications to attract funding from multilateral and bilateral organizations, foundations, development organizations and impact investors to implement our agriculture and food security projects in Nigeria.
Outside the classroom, my Masters study experience gave me the blessing of knowing people from many national and cultural backgrounds. The experience made me see that people in many ways are the same everywhere. It gave me the opportunity to really understand people from different cultural backgrounds. I made many friends, many of whom I am still in touch with today. I learned to embrace people’s perfections alongside our flaws.
The Masters gave me confidence as I took my first steps, carving a career path in entrepreneurship. There was this “I can do it” spirit I gained during and after the Masters which has guided me to this day. I lost fear and procrastination. This came from the thought-provoking and insightful classes where Economics and Quantitative Methods were broken down to my very understanding and deep interactions with like-minded students, who became friends forever!
I will advise any young student who wants to enter entrepreneurship for social impact creation, to spend quality time identifying the root causes of the problem he or she is trying to solve, spend quality time building an impactful solution around it and never be afraid of failures. Challenges will usually come in the cause of solving the problem, but what stands the testament of time is our ability to overcome those challenges!
