My top advice...
“The two pieces of advice that helped me most were to surround yourself with the right people and to not give up. It sounds cheesy but it turned out to be so true for me. Firstly, the right people help you to be in the right mindset, to challenge your ideas and to make you grow stronger. And secondly, there will be highs and lows and your idea will adjust along the way but giving up shouldn't be an option. Successful companies have one thing in common; they didn't give up otherwise they wouldn't exist. I think about that very regularly.”
Louise Bijleveld is the co-founder of LONO in Cote d’Ivoire, a clean technology start-up providing products and services for waste-to-energy. They have developed a product for households and SMEs called KubeKo, a solar powered bin that converts organic waste into fertilizer or biogas. For agro and food industries, they provide consulting services to advise on the most viable technology option to generate electricity from the waste available.