Smart Solutions for a Sustainable Future: Figorr's IoT Approach to Reduce Food and Vaccine Wastage in Africa with Tega Iortim

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast, where we find inspirational people who are doing inspirational things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today, we have another special guest. We have Tega Iortim, who is CEO and founder of Figor,

[00:01:15] which is an IoT company that offers real-time monitoring and tracking for temperature-sensitive items. Welcome to the podcast, Tega. How are you? I'm very well. Thank you, Tessie. It's a pleasure to be here today.

[00:01:30] Fantastic. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I usually like to self in the beginning, so I was hoping you could introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Tega. Thank you. Thanks again, Tessie. My name is Tega. Full name is Ogena Tega Iortim,

[00:01:47] the founder of Figor as you've mentioned. But about me, I've always been very passionate about business and been very passionate about how business could play a role in moving Africa forward or moving the continent forward. Because I think there's a lot of opportunities to innovate,

[00:02:03] and when you're able to innovate and monetize, then that creates a sustainable ecosystem for the growth and for the forward movement of the continent. So in a nutshell, yeah, that's pretty much me. Fantastic. So you mentioned that you're passionate about business and

[00:02:19] how we can play a role in moving the continent forward, which has obviously led you to founding Figor. So can you give us an overview of the company and what inspired you to start the company?

[00:02:31] Yeah, Figor's story is an interesting one in the sense that where we started from, we were trying to solve one problem. The mission has stayed the same. I think the vision has stayed the same as well. But the way we've gone about it has changed over time.

[00:02:46] When we started out the business, the goal was it was burst out of a personal experience. I had and a couple of friends had invested in a farm in 2016, 2017, they're about and we incurred huge amount of losses because we're investing in vegetables. And so this opened my eyes

[00:03:04] to an opportunity which was storage for perishable products. I wanted to build something that was affordable to smallholder farmers, but also had a lot of IoT technology components to it.

[00:03:17] And a lot of things happen, you know, you go into the market with certain visions of a certain ideas, but the market responds in a certain way. So we had to learn from that in the sense that what

[00:03:28] we built was very infrastructure heavy. We didn't have the capital to grow the business the way we wanted to. But one thing that we learned from it was that the IoT component

[00:03:38] from the solution which we had built would be very relevant to a number of the businesses that we were not even looking at at the time. And so we doubled down and focused on the IoT component

[00:03:49] and started providing monitoring. And after providing monitoring for about two, three years, we noticed that a number of the customers that we're serving did not have access to insurance, which is very strange considering the volumes of transactions that happen across the continent.

[00:04:05] And, you know, lesson with the insurance companies, we then realized that look, historically, there's a lot of data that proves that we shouldn't be doing this. But what we figured was that the data that we've been gathering for the past two,

[00:04:16] three years can actually help the insurance companies differentiate between the way tech at dust off and the way it takes it does stuff. Right? So we now layered on insurance on top of what we do. So today, looking back, you know, when we just wanted to store produce

[00:04:31] on behalf of businesses, we're now more of a data company that is using temperature, humidity, location information to optimize business processes as well as create new business opportunities for different sectors in a nutshell. So that's the evolution of the business.

[00:04:47] Brilliant. So the inspiration came from solving a problem from personal experience in agriculture. And then you decided to double down on the IoT component. So Figuor is an IoT company for those who are listening and are familiar with what IoT is. Can you please give us like a

[00:05:06] brief overview or description of what is IoT? Yeah, so IoT is sort of like it's a short form for Internet of Things. But the easiest way to kind of just say it is having devices that are able

[00:05:21] to communicate in real or near real time, in the sense that your mobile phone is an example of an IoT device because it's able to ping certain information at certain points in time. So that transmission or that ability to actually communicate certain information in real time or

[00:05:40] near real time is basically what you would call an IoT device. Brilliant. So if we look at what you're trying to achieve via using IoT technology, your mission is to address food and vaccine wastage. Could you share some statistics or examples to highlight, say the scale of this

[00:06:02] issue within Sub-Saharan Africa? Yeah. The issue of losses across Sub-Saharan Africa is really scary. Basically, across Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of food, we lose on the average between 40% to 60% of the food that we produce within the Sub-Saharan African region. The value of

[00:06:22] that is roughly around $4 billion. In terms of vaccines or healthcare related products, we lose roughly between 40% to 70%. And why I'm saying 40% to 60% or 40% to 70% is because we find out in certain countries that do things better than some other countries.

[00:06:40] In Nigeria, which is my home country, we tend to find that those scales are on the very, very high side. So for food, I think for produce like vegetables or tomatoes, we're losing about 60%, 70%. For meat and fish, we're losing about 44%. For milk and dairy, I think we're

[00:06:57] losing around 46% there about. So we're losing a huge chunk of the food that we're producing in terms of healthcare. We're losing a huge chunk of the products that are supposed to be life-saving. And these are two very critical sectors that are very relevant to human living.

[00:07:13] Without vaccination, kids are exposed to diseases. Human beings in general, without food, nobody can survive essentially. And when you look at the number of the products, dairy, fish, these are essential proteins. And without those proteins, they also affect

[00:07:28] the growth of human beings. So aside from the monetary value, there's a lot of impact in terms of the quality of life that people can live due to these losses. And I think these are some of

[00:07:38] the more fundamental issues that we look at as an organization. But you can also talk about the impact, the economic impact on countries in terms of losses. When you look at countries like Nigeria, for example, you see the level of imports that we have to make just to

[00:07:54] complement some of these losses which occur across the internal value chain in the country. It's massive. So there's a huge opportunity. It affects the economy, but it also affects livelihood and quality of living for millions of people across the Sub-Saharan African region.

[00:08:09] Interesting. Interesting. So you mentioned that in agriculture, we lose around 40 to 60% of the food we grow. A lot of that waste occurs during post-harvest transportation and the storage phase. So how does free-goers technology work to monitor and prevent the losses during the

[00:08:27] transportation and the storage phase of perishable goods? Yeah, so in countries like Nigeria, I mean across a lot of Sub-Saharan African region, you tend to find that there's a lot of infrastructure failures. And a lot of the losses are due to these infrastructural failures. I'll give you

[00:08:45] a simple example. Power outage in Nigeria is very rampant, very frequent. So what you tend to find is that when I'm storing products in a particular cold room or in a particular location, there

[00:08:58] tends to be power outage. And in a lot of these locations or in a lot of these geographies, what you tend to find is junior people not wanting to report certain cases, especially when things go wrong. So senior management will lead to a huge amount of losses happening.

[00:09:17] So what we basically do is that we have the IoT components, which is the devices that are installed in certain facilities. So in cases where power goes out, people are notified. And when there's a

[00:09:30] continuous exposure, alerts keep going out to ensure that the next three steps are taken to ensure that those losses don't happen. Because what you find is that with a lot of the perishable products, it's not like when I expose a certain product for one minute,

[00:09:46] it goes immediately. It's a continuous exposure that leads to the damage of the product or reduction in shelf life of that particular product. So being able to notify the certain individuals or certain key responsible individuals helps reduce the losses significantly.

[00:10:03] I'll illustrate this in some numbers. We've worked with several organizations, one particular organization, I may not be able to mention the name here. When we started working with them by deploying our solution, we were able to discover certain

[00:10:17] loopholes within their transportation of healthcare material. The success rate of delivery was around 44%, which meant that if you were transporting 100% or let's say 100 millionaire worth of commodity, you were losing roughly around 44 million. And devices were able

[00:10:35] to detect all this. So with further improvement, advisory and so on and so forth, the organization was able to improve. And I mean, within this space of four months, they were able to grow, reduce that loss from about 44 million to roughly around 3 million. Because some things are beyond

[00:10:51] circumstances. And looking at it on the flip side, you were losing 44 million all of a sudden you're gaining about 30, about 41 million. So that's the real impact that we're able to bring into organizations. But when you also look at it from a human perspective, it means that if I

[00:11:06] was transporting 100 vials of vaccines and I was losing about 66, it means that less people have access to these vaccines. But with our solution that has been able to grow to about 97, which means that more people now have access to it and then is actually creating

[00:11:22] the real impact for the people who need these products for good health as well as quality of living and growth. Brilliant. So you mentioned that you use IoT components, which then send alerts and obviously those alerts are data driven. So what key data points does

[00:11:41] figures IoT solutions monitor and provide in real time? Yeah, so we work with three base data points, which is temperature, humidity, location, these three things. And the reason why we have these three key data points is largely because of the challenges that are common. So when

[00:11:58] you have an infrastructure failure, what tends to happen is temperatures begin to rise or infrastructure failure or equipment failure, temperatures may begin to drop significantly. And when it goes too high or goes too low, you can damage products, right? So that's why

[00:12:13] we monitor things like temperature, humidity, for example, excess moisture in certain storage facilities can also lead to damage. So that's also another key part. Location, the challenge of maybe things like theft or things like human errors or human issues such that a driver is supposed

[00:12:32] to take products from point A to point B but decides to go to point C, point D, before getting to point B. From an economic standpoint, that also exposes the organizations to huge amount of losses financially and also exposes them to unnecessary risks as well.

[00:12:49] And that's the reason why we monitor those three major points. Thank you for that. So you've mentioned during our conversation, the infrastructure challenges and failure. So outside of say infrastructure, what other challenges do businesses typically face that are dealing with perishable goods within Nigeria or sub-Saharan Africa?

[00:13:11] Yeah, the infrastructure problems are there but human problems are there as well. And human problems that are multifaceted. The challenge of pure fridge which happens in a number of organizations. You also have the challenge of electricity because a lot of people who do things

[00:13:29] like transportation, people who do things like loading and unloading, packing tend to come from the informal sector and sometimes they don't have the basic knowledge on how to properly do certain things. We've seen certain organizations where a huge amount of losses were just coming

[00:13:46] from the way that they're packing. They were not preconditioning properly before the pack and so on and so forth and that device was able to detect that. So those are some of the fundamental issues with humans. So there's a lot that can actually happen, things that you

[00:14:00] don't even know are happening due to human errors. There are also process issues. For example, a product to ship from point A to point B, how long is it taking? How long is it at the airport for?

[00:14:13] There was a particular incident in Nigeria where products were moved from one state to another state and then FAN that's the Federal Airport Authority. There were certain levels that needed to be paid and there were things that we learned during that whole process and we just

[00:14:29] realized that these processes too were exposing the products to certain losses and damages, which is also a major challenge but we can also attribute that to a human error as well. But yeah, so there are people problems, there are process problems alongside infrastructure problems.

[00:14:46] What would you say is the direct impact of these challenges or issues to the businesses how does your solution mitigate these issues? Yeah, what we find is that most management level organizations don't have visibility into their day-to-day operations except what they're being

[00:15:05] told. Most organizations at the end of the day figure that get standard reports, so how many products were able to transport from point A to point B? How much money was I able to make?

[00:15:17] Most times they're focused on the bottom line but with a solution you are provided the visibility into the integrities. What condition was the products when they left the cold room? How long

[00:15:30] did they stay outside the cold room before getting into the truck? What time did they get to the airport? How long did it take before getting into a plane? How long did the flight also take

[00:15:39] from point A to point B? When did it get here? How long did it take? So breaking down and providing that visibility into that end-to-end process can help you in your planning as well as in

[00:15:51] mitigating the losses. So take for example a plane is supposed to take off from 11, we have a lot of delayed flights in Africa and so what tends to happen is that instead of your products to be

[00:16:01] loaded they are left on the dock and pending when the flight is ready for loading. So there are a lot of things that you can actually put in place to ensure that okay the products need

[00:16:10] to stay in this particular facility pending when the flights are ready and being able to see that in real time can actually help you action out sets and steps to ensure that those products are not

[00:16:21] exposed unnecessarily. In terms of 3PLs as well you also do tend to find that I give my products to a 3PL organization or to a third party logistics organization and then I have no

[00:16:34] visibility into whatsoever you're doing from the point of pick up to the point where it's been dropped off and so without products you are able to actually see what's going on when did

[00:16:44] it get picked up where was it taken to how was it kept you know and so on and so forth and we've seen a few about customers actually use that in structuring out contracts you know how many

[00:16:55] hours of exposure am I allowed to have how many hours of exposure am I not supposed to have because ultimately you want the products get into the customer in the right conditions

[00:17:04] because customers have a right to refuse out so if the products get to the customers and the customers feel these products have been exposed or they're not getting the best quality then the customers can return it which means lost revenue on your behalf. So that's how our technology

[00:17:18] plays a role in both reducing the losses the cost of doing business as well as ensuring that you know your income goes up as well. We've spoken about these challenges as Africa wide challenges are there any region specific challenges in Africa that you've had to

[00:17:34] address when implementing your IOT solutions? Not really though I think to be fair challenges are kind of very similar although regionally when it comes to things like power outage West Africa or I would say English speaking West Africa tends to have a unique set of challenges right

[00:17:56] or I would say Nigeria has its own unique challenges because you don't find that problem as much in Kenya although Kenya recently started having you know some low shedding problems as well but it's not as bad as what you know is experienced in Nigeria Ghana

[00:18:12] too has its own challenges but not as bad as Nigeria again. So yeah in Nigeria there are a number of things that we've had to do quite differently but yeah in general we think that

[00:18:26] country to country certain things the approach sort of has to change because in certain regions you do find that connectivity is your main problem in other locations you do find that connectivity may

[00:18:39] not be the major problem but other power sources may be the problem so in terms of things like battery your battery capacity has to be different you know for one region to another region so those

[00:18:50] are some of the things that may have had to be adopted for different regions. Fantastic so outside of adopting by region how do you go about adapting technology to say accommodate varying climate conditions in different parts of Africa or does it not need

[00:19:10] to be adapted to operate I guess optimally depending on the varying climates and conditions. Yeah no not really right because you have certain certifications that you need to undergo first and those certifications like AMC, Health and Safety, RF they're put at conditions in terms of

[00:19:31] even things like temperature you're doing comparisons in environmental conditions of about 48 degrees I mean except maybe you're working in Sahara but yeah in most conditions it's going to work because you're testing it in those certifications get and show that those products are tested on the

[00:19:51] you know really critical conditions so no you don't really need to adapt it from one location to another location so there's a maximum temperature there's a minimum temperature that it's expected to work with. Brilliant so looking at everything that we've discussed so far in terms of the

[00:20:07] challenges how the solution works in different regions within the continent this all kind of gears towards benefiting their business what are the financial implications for businesses when they do not have access to real-time data on their perishable goods? The impact on the financial

[00:20:28] implications on it is I mean losses happen and when losses happen when you lose products you're unable to sell so that impact is major right so you lose your capital that has been

[00:20:39] invested into the product then you also lose on the other end because you're unable to make a profit. So that's the financial implications and this is why you see a lot of global businesses trying to implement IoT into different levels of their organization because they want to see

[00:20:58] how many hours are we spending on doing A or doing B because if there's a way to optimize then we should optimize that that means less capital invested into certain things but we're able to generate the same amount of earnings which means a larger profit so that's

[00:21:14] the impact of IoT or even our solution on things like fresh produce medical items so once you're able to successfully deliver it from point A to point B then that means a higher chance of

[00:21:27] guaranteed income so yeah that's the impact on finances. So if we look outside of a business and at the wider economy can you share examples of say the economic impact the reducing wastage through your solutions could have on regions and communities in Africa? So when we talk about

[00:21:47] economies it just means a collection of people you know and once Mr A is fine and we're able to replicate those wins that Mr A has enjoyed across you know every other person then that

[00:22:00] generally improves and when we look at agro commodities or when we talk about Africa in general 70% of the population is directly involved in agricultural production smallholder farmers are about 70% of the population and so how do we optimize? How do we ensure that production

[00:22:19] is done better, more sustainable and most importantly after post-havest how do we ensure that those losses are minimal? So when we're able to do this using IoT monitoring how products are stored monitoring how products are moved that helps us reduce the losses in general

[00:22:37] and we've done this successfully with a number of organizations well over 100 organizations across the continent and we think that the more organizations the more businesses the smallholder farmers is more poultry farmers are able to adopt this and understand how to

[00:22:53] improve the organizations or how to improve their processes and reduce those losses then those effects are multiplied across the economies and generally once you're able to empower about 70% of the population which is directly involved in the agricultural produce then you're definitely

[00:23:10] going to see a change and you know we've seen governments try to spend a lot on you know infrastructure for storage and so on and so forth and if we're able to basically improve

[00:23:21] this process then there's going to be a direct impact on economies across the sub-saharan African region at large. Fantastic so it's clear that what you're doing has huge benefits but in order to realize these benefits it requires you as an organization to collect reliable and accurate

[00:23:40] data so how do you ensure the data that you are collecting is reliable and accurate? Yeah so there are two parts to it and there's a part we have to play as an organization

[00:23:52] in terms of as the solution provider but there's also the part that has to be played as the user right so as a solution provider what we're able to do is we have to ensure that our devices

[00:24:03] are properly calibrated we have to ensure that the devices are communicating so we do this by using global ruminsim cards which means that they can hop from MTN to GLO to Vodacom to Safaricom to whichever network is available to you. Secondly calibration ensures that the data

[00:24:22] that is being pulled all the environmental conditions that it's being pulled is as accurate to the point of to the point five degree right so that's super accuracy only in terms of data

[00:24:33] in terms of the responsibility of the business owner is just about placing the products in the right locations right because if you want to understand what the storage conditions of vaccines

[00:24:45] in a box are you can't place the products outside the box and expect to have the information from inside the box right yes so that's the responsibility of the business owner or the business partner

[00:24:57] so those are the two responsibilities to ensure that you know the data is accurate. Brilliant you touched on a point there which is the importance of the environmental conditions so if we look at environmental conditions environmental and sustainability implications

[00:25:15] what would you say the environmental and sustainability implications of reducing food and vaccine wastage is in Africa through IoT technology? Yeah so food loss is one of the leading greenhouse gases food thrown away essentially so there's that direct implication

[00:25:35] when you look at you know its impact on the environment so that's one key area but like I also like to mention I know whenever we're talking about environmental impacts we always keep

[00:25:45] talking about the air and things like that but we also need to talk about the direct impact too on human lives right whenever we throw food but denying somebody else a meal so being able to reduce that also significantly increases the chances of other people but also there's

[00:26:02] also the direct impact on the price of food price of medication and so on and so forth because basic loss of economics once the supply reduces directly and demand stays the same then you

[00:26:13] know that the prices are going to go up once the supply is in excess and demand remains the same or even slightly increases you do find that the prices do come down so there's a lot

[00:26:26] of impact on human lives but also on the environment there's that direct impact of like I said losses or dumping of food products on production of greenhouse gases. How environmentally friendly would you say the IoT technology that you're using is?

[00:26:45] I mean it's pretty friendly but also as a company we have policies around end-of-life usage of devices which is our corporate social responsibility to ensure that the batteries are properly disposed of because the batteries are lithium ion batteries which are very similar to

[00:27:01] what is being used in electronic vehicles or in mobile phones and so on and so forth. So we have a corporate responsibility to ensure that that end-of-life usage the batteries are properly disposed of and components which can be recycled are recycled so like the

[00:27:19] enclosures which are plastics are things that can be recycled so those are reused but things that need to be properly disposed of have to be properly disposed of such as the lithium ion

[00:27:28] batteries. Fantastic so IoT in terms of its usage in Africa would you say it's growing or something that is still quite new and is not widely used? Yeah so IoT like I keep saying IoT are I mean

[00:27:47] it's used everywhere I mean I think in Africa I don't know I don't have that data but I know that at least for example mobile phones usage is really wide and its implications are massive so

[00:27:58] when you go to like East Africa or Kenya you see what MPSI is doing over there and your mind is blown. The use of POS is in Nigeria or across the continent as well is also a very big

[00:28:10] IoT application we're seeing a lot of smart meters being installed in Nigeria and I think also in Kenya I'm sorry these are two markets I'm very familiar with so I mean I'll be very conversant with what's happening in some other African countries so smart meters are also

[00:28:28] being widely used. So there are numbers I think it's largely acceptable it's largely being used and by actually using it to solve some very very critical problems for the continent so I think yeah the adoption is there but there's still a lot of room for growth

[00:28:47] and I think we would get there. Brilliant so you touched on mobile money in Kenya, smart meters in Nigeria and there is room for growth so which countries on the continent are you currently active in? Yeah so we're active in about seven countries Nigeria, Kenya,

[00:29:05] Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, Uganda or southern countries across the continent. Brilliant what are your future plans for expansion? Because we're serving a lot of exporters right now in the East African region we're seeing a

[00:29:23] demand for us to be on the other end of that export market which is Europe so we're planning to expand into the European market by P1 Q2 of next year to start helping a few of our customers

[00:29:39] who are exporting as well as the importers from this region with tracking and improvement of their processes from the African side all up onto the point when it gets to Europe but in particular

[00:29:51] we're talking about Netherlands as a country. Brilliant that's great to hear so do you think there'll be an adaptation or change in terms of how the technology is used in Europe in comparison to how it's used in Africa? Yeah yes definitely there would have to be adaptations

[00:30:10] I mean there were there had to be adaptations even between Nigeria and Kenya you know or Nigeria and East Africa. Ghana and Nigeria were kind of similar in terms of its application or

[00:30:22] how we presented this solution in East Africa it has had to we've had to evolve the solution into something different in Nigeria was just basic monitoring as well as as insurance layered

[00:30:34] on top of it but in Kenya it has had to evolve into something slightly different sort of more like a marketplace type of opportunity but still at the core is still the monitoring and the

[00:30:45] abilities to provide coverage for transactions that are happening but yeah we definitely have to evolve it as we learn and grow into the new market. Interesting and very exciting so in terms of the overall IoT space how you're using it in agriculture, vaccine, perishable goods

[00:31:07] are there any trends that you're seeing in that space that you're currently excited about? In terms of IoT yeah I mean there's actually a lot there's actually a lot happening from a logistics standpoint we're seeing a lot more of automated systems for transportation

[00:31:26] for warehouse operations and these two effects both the healthcare and the agricultural sector because there's a lot of logistics that enables that sector. We're seeing a lot of IoT components even in terms of smart farming rather than just point water you know you have smart machines that

[00:31:44] are able to do things like drip irrigation we're also seeing the use of IoT components in terms of delivery of medication we're seeing this with the likes of drone company that's doing a number of

[00:31:58] things in Africa because drones are also essentially IoT also some sort of IoT components because you have to mark locations and things like that so there's a lot of applications and there's a lot of exciting stuff that's actually happening across the continent using IoT technology so yeah

[00:32:17] there's a lot of exciting stuff. Fantastic so if we look past current trends where do you see Africa's IoT space specifically with regards to what you're doing in the next five years time?

[00:32:30] Yeah a lot of positives a lot of positives I think for one one key area especially as a business starting up that was really difficult is manufacturing of IoT components but now we've seen a new lab called Gearbox that recently sprung up in Kenya and they do

[00:32:48] manufacturing the same way you'll do it in China or in Guangzhou in China or in Hong Kong they have the equipment that can manufacture as much as 2500 PCBs I think in an hour or something like that

[00:33:02] which is great and when you also look at the commercials of it is also very comparable in terms of cost so those are some of the things that I think are very exciting so

[00:33:11] if we're able to take care of that end-to-end production to the point of utilization then I think there's a future there so manufacturing is now being done on the African continent for IoT components which that is very exciting the applications are endless so in the next five

[00:33:31] years I do see a lot more IoT components I do see a lot more manufacturing happening on the continent solving very critical problems so yeah it's really exciting future ahead brilliant so

[00:33:44] if we look closer to home where do you see yourself in Figo in five years time what are your long-term goals and vision yeah in the next five years I mean as Figo I expect us to be

[00:33:56] in more countries building very vital solutions that help solve critical problems around the perishable space that's as Figo so hopefully in the European market playing a pivotal role one key area that we're very keen on is how do we now start connecting the rest of the world to

[00:34:17] the African producers and ensuring that there's quality assurance along the way so that's one key area that we're very keen on and hopefully we would have been able to become that number one connection right between these two worlds but also using IoT to ensure that there's true

[00:34:34] visibility true traceability available so yeah that's where we hope to be as a business in the next four to five years fantastic and I look forward to keeping an eye on your development and seeing

[00:34:47] how things turn out I'm sure it will be positive thank you so much Tessie Quote of the week as people we often have quotes mantras African proverbs or affirmations that keep

[00:34:59] us going when times are good or when times are challenging do you have one that you can share with us today it's something I like to say a lot is um we all need to kind of just believe in

[00:35:10] ourselves as individuals um I think for a lot of us especially in the technology ecosystem as Africans who probably maybe didn't get the best or we feel like we usually don't get the best

[00:35:23] education or we feel like we don't have access to the best resources we tend to doubt ourselves a lot and we then make a lot of wrong moves but yeah my message would still be to believe in

[00:35:35] yourselves and stumble and figure things out across as you move um but yeah you're probably the best person to do what you're doing at the moment that's a great one thank you for sharing

[00:35:46] thank you Tessie as we're coming to the end of today's conversation I was wondering if you have any closing remarks final course to action for people who are interested in iot applications or usage

[00:36:00] in Africa or interested in the work that you're doing at FIGO yeah um I mean if you're interested in the work that we're doing at FIGO I guess um you could um you can send me a message um you

[00:36:13] can send me an email uh to tega at figure.com which is t-e-g-a at f-i-g-o-r-r.com um happy to discuss about the ecosystem in Africa as well as what we're doing as a company and how we could

[00:36:31] further impact your business as well as collaborate to further impact the continent so yeah amazing well a great way to end today's conversation is clear that FIGO is using some extremely innovative solutions technology to make substantial impact in reducing food and

[00:36:51] vaccine wastage in Africa I'm looking forward to seeing how your continued efforts are making an impact on the continent so yeah thank you for joining me on the podcast today and it's

[00:37:02] been a pleasure having you tega thank you very much it's been a pleasure speaking with you as well thank you thank you to everyone who has listened and stay tuned to the podcast if you've enjoyed

[00:37:14] this episode please subscribe share or tell a friend about it you can also rate review us in apple podcast or wherever you download your podcast thank you and see you next week for the Unlocking Africa podcast