After his father had a partial stroke, he was temporarily ill and unable to work, leaving the family struggling to make ends meet.
“I remember most times there was little or no food [in the house],” he told CNN. “I had to go to school without food and got by with snacks friends shared with me.” .
“I always said in the future I would do something to ensure others wouldn’t go through what I went through.”
Fast forward to 2017 and Ekponimo, now a software engineer, is doing exactly that through his web app Chowberry.
The app connects supermarkets to NGOs and low-income earners, allowing them to buy food that’s about to expire at a discount.
Ekponimo says the response to the project has been encouraging and he’s been able to see first hand how it’s transforming lives.
“We met one lady who has six children and survives on 400 naira ($1.05)a day,” he said. “She sells firewood and kunu (a local drink). One day the task force seized her kunu for hawking in the street, and she had nothing. She had to feed her family on what she made. So it’s nice to see the impact of what we’re doing.”
A three-month pilot involving 20 retailers reached about 300 people in Lagos and Abuja, feeding 150 orphans and children at risk.
He is hopeful that more national retailers will join the scheme as demand for the service continues to grow in the face of Nigeria’s recession.
“We went from about 1,500 daily visits to double that. There have been requests and demand, people tell me we really want this, we’re relying on what you guys are doing because things are expensive.”
Hunger and food insecurity are problems still plaguing the continent.
Widespread poverty, inflation and insecurity have been cited as contributing factors to Nigeria’s hunger problem.
Last year, Ekponimo won a Rolex Award for Enterprise for his work and has hopes to expand.
“It’s been a wonderful journey,” he said. “We’re expanding our work and working on scaling to other parts of the country and to other regions and possibly replicating it in other parts of the world.”
