Lateef Salami, the founder of Ecopath, has more than 15 years of experience in the office equipment industry in Nigeria. Lateef’s academic background is in Electrical Engineering (Higher National Diploma from The Polytechnic in Ibadan, Nigeria, 2001) and Sustainability and Environmental Management (Master’s degree from University of Derby, UK, 2019). Lateef’s career in office equipment industry began in 2004 when he joined CFAO Technologies as a Service Engineer. There he was responsible for maintenance and repairs of duplicators, photocopiers and printers, customer relationship management, product demonstrations, training and workshops.
In 2008 Lateef started Bluesky Digitech – a small informal office equipment repair consultancy. The idea was to create a for-purpose business that would serve as a social empowerment platform where unemployed graduates could gain new skills for free. Apart from providing hands-on training to graduates, Lateef was also mentoring technicians already working in the industry, and solving knotty technical problems with office equipment which provided a source of revenue. These activities made Bluesky Digitech a melting pot of novel technical solutions and ideas, and created a tight-knit network of professionals in the office equipment industry.
In 2019 Lateef moved to Germany to become a research fellow at the International Sustainability Academy (ISA) and join a global network of professionals from 12 different countries. There he learnt about best practices in sustainability and how to build impactful startups that contribute towards reaching Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). That is where the idea for Ecopath was developed.
Lateef is a member of Africa Circular Economy Network.
