Okey Ibekwe Esse

Okey Ibekwe Esse has over 16 years of experience in MSME businesses and a knack for social inventions and deep tech. Okey is a self-taught serial creative and visionary entrepreneur who has developed successful products and services from actionable Strategies to Sustainability. He founded Powerstove Energy, created two proprietary products, holds one patent and franchise of two other products and has established himself as a valuable resource in helping budding entrepreneurs with fundraising activities. To date, Okey has raised over US$50 million for 101+ SMEs. On the humanitarian side, Okey is the President and Co-founder of Passionate Care Foundation, an NGO that focuses on nutrition and food security, gender equality, HIV/AIDS advocacy and free primary healthcare services. Passionate Care Foundation is working with Vitamin Angels California USA to give free Vitamin A, Deworming Tablets and Multivitamin drugs to 0-69months children, pregnant and nursing mothers. Over 100+ women owned micro-enterprises have received US$500 each business support financing from Passionate Care Foundation. Okey Esse and his companies have won several awards and recognition including 2014 Mandela Washington Fellow, YouWiN Grants, World Bank BIG Accelerator Grants, Nollywood/FMF Distribution Innovation Funds Grants, D-Prize, Cisco, TEF-GIZ, UN Foundation, DEMO Africa, Engie Energy African Startup of the Year 2018 Award, 2018 Champions of Science Africa Story Challenge, etc. He is a graduate of Physics Electronics from University of Jos, Plateau State, and an alumnus of Westerwelle Foundation Programme, Berlin, Germany (WYPF Spring 2019) and a Graduate of Entrepreneurship from Enterprise Development Center of Pan-African University.