Video Podcast: Redefining Success

Joseph Nguthiru, 2025 winner of the UN Young Champion of the Earth award, is the founder of HyaPak, a circular economy solution that converts invasive water hyacinth into biodegradable packaging. This simultaneously tackles plastic pollution, manages invasive species, and improves livelihoods for affected communities. HyaPak won the best innovation in Nature, Food and Water systems at COP 28.

Beyond HyaPak, Joseph is the co-founder of M-Situ, an AI early-warning system for detecting deforestation, wildfires, and charcoal burning. M-Situ is ranked as outstanding in the UNESCO IRCAI top 100 AI projects for SDGs.

He is also the co-founder of AfroClimate, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering African climate entrepreneurs. Joseph's work in innovation, science, and policy advocacy has also led to him becoming an Obama Foundation Leader and part of 40 Under 40 Africa.

Denis Karema is the founder of SokoFresh: a Kenyan agritech company providing solar-powered cold storage and logistics services for smallholder farmers.

What makes this story personal is where it starts. Denis’ grandma was a farmer. He saw firsthand how hard people worked on the land, yet how little progress was made over time. Later, through his work across accelerators and innovation programs, he began to understand that the problem wasn’t just farming itself, but everything that happens after harvest. 

Despite millions invested in training of farmers, up to half of the produce was still being lost. That realisation - that the system, not the effort, was broken - is what ultimately led him to build Sokofresh.

In 2019, Denis founded SokoFresh as a venture of Dutch venture building studio Enviu.

Since launch, SokoFresh has built a network of cold storage hubs that help farmers reduce waste and improve income.