• You can’t but love the way tech makes the red oil more useful to you while protecting the environment

 

When we deeply think about how technology helps us and the world at large, (when we deeply think about it and not like how we think about liking our favourite celebrity’s new post on twitter before reading it; “that’s even if we read them”), what probably comes to mind is that technology helps us connect with friends and family online and “Oh yes! Transportation! Technology also takes us to these friends and family.” If we break into another level of deeper thinking, we might just begin to realise how it doesn’t just bring us closer to things, but how it helps to bring the essential things of life closer to us.

 

When people think about palm kernel oil (commonly known as just palm oil), they mostly think about it as a common cooking ingredient, but palm oil is also used in the creation of oleochemicals, which include lubricants, cosmetics, and even margarine. In the Nigerian palm oil scene, the product became scarce among the manufacturers that really needed it because of an increase in demand and the unimproved process of making it until recently. What changed? The inefficient manufacturing of palm oil. What caused the change? You guessed it, Technology!

 

Releaf, an indigenous firm, is brilliantly making use of technology to accelerate the production of palm oil to solve the problem for manufacturers who pay a pricey amount for palm oil in the making of the cosmetics you need, or the margarine used in making some of the pastries you love. The company has a “smart facility” in Akwa Ibom state that employs a variety of algorithms and computers to produce palm oil as much as needed. Since the company started its “tech for good initiative”, the probability that your favourite cosmetics or margarine brand will have a price fluctuation is being reduced. So, when you next think deeply about how technology helps you and the world at large, we hope that you’ll be eating your favourite pastry.

 

To read more on the various tech for good initiatives and how they are impacting Nigerian lives, click on the link below to read the TTSWG publication.

https://www.ttswg.org/resources/tech-for-good-initiatives-in-nigeria/