Meet Princess Odiaka, a Global Cleantech Innovation Program GCIP-Nigeria Female Founder

Photo: Princess Odiaka with COOKBLU

The Global Cleantech Innovation Program GCIP-Nigeria program has launched an Entrepreneur Spotlight Series to highlight the impact of women-led businesses supported by the program. This initiative aims to celebrate their achievements, inspire other entrepreneurs, and showcase the role of women in driving cleantech innovation. 

In this episode, Co-creation HUB (CcHUB) sits down with Princess Odiaka, Founder of Trifinity Intelligence Consult Ltd (TIC), the company behind COOKBLU, a smart-metered LPG stove that is setting new standards for clean cooking in Africa.

Trifinity Intelligence Consult Ltd (TIC) Company Profile: 

Trifinity Intelligence Consult Ltd (TIC) is a clean energy and capacity-building consultancy firm leading Africa’s transition to sustainable cooking. COOKBLU, a smart-metered LPG stove is transforming how families and businesses across Africa cook. By combining affordability, safety, and efficiency, COOKBLU is redefining everyday cooking while reducing reliance on unsustainable fuels.

With this main solution, TIC turns global climate goals into real benefits for local communities, helping families, supporting businesses, and promoting cleaner, healthier neighbourhoods. Built on customer focus, operational excellence, and reliable service delivery, TIC has earned its place as a trusted driver of Africa’s clean energy future.

Photo: COOKBLU, a smart-metered LPG stove

Here’s how the conversation with Princess went.

Introduction and Background

CCHUB: Can you share the inspiration behind your product and the journey to its creation?

Princess: A personal loss ignited my determination to find a safer and cleaner cooking alternative.

But also looking at statistics, you see that there is a real problem and a need for safer and cleaner cooking alternatives. According to Nigeria’s National Clean Cooking Policy (2023), about 80% of rural families—representing nearly 19% of Africa’s population—still rely on firewood for cooking. The WHO reports that around 95,000 deaths annually in Nigeria are linked to indoor air pollution (IAP/PM2.5), with 52,000 of those being women and children. Prolonged exposure leads to respiratory diseases, eye irritation, miscarriages, and more. Beyond health, women and children spend 4–10 hours daily collecting firewood, often facing risks of rape, abduction, or violence. The environmental toll is also grave, with Nigeria losing about 409,650 hectares of forest cover annually (2.38%) due to firewood dependence.

Even households that transition to LPG face challenges; high upfront costs, limited accessibility, poor reliability, and the risks associated with expired steel cylinders, which make up 98% of those in circulation. With no cylinder requalification plant in Nigeria, safety concerns remain high.

These realities fueled my journey: not only to adopt a cleaner fuel but to innovate a safe, affordable, and sustainable solution that addresses barriers to LPG adoption. This vision gave birth to COOKBLU, a smart-metered LPG stove designed to make clean cooking accessible, reliable, and safe, especially for rural women and vulnerable households.

Challenges and Overcoming Barriers

CcHUB: What major challenges have you faced as a female founder while building your business, and how have you strategically worked through them to keep moving forward?

Princess: As a female founder in Nigeria’s gas industry, my journey has not been without challenges. Operating in a male-dominated space means constantly navigating structural, cultural, and systemic barriers that often make it harder for women to thrive.

One of the most significant challenges I have faced is gender stereotypes and cultural bias. At different points, even close friends and relatives questioned my choice to pursue a career in what is traditionally seen as a “man’s industry.” They believed I was unfit for technical or leadership roles in oil and gas and often tried to discourage me from venturing into fields like engineering, operations, and logistics. Over time, I realised that proving competence was not enough; I needed to demonstrate resilience, persistence, and consistent results to shift these perceptions.

Another major hurdle has been limited access to networks, mentorship, and financing. Industry platforms are often male-dominated, making it difficult for women to plug into the right connections or secure strong mentors who understand our unique challenges. In terms of financing, female-owned businesses in LPG distribution or retailing face structural disadvantages; investors are sometimes reluctant to trust women-led enterprises, and access to collateral can be difficult. Meanwhile, male competitors dominate most of the supply chain, leaving women at the periphery. This under-representation means that gender-sensitive policies, such as safer cylinder management and support for women-led last-mile LPG retailing, are often overlooked.

On a personal level, I have also had to navigate the challenge of balancing work and life. Building a business from scratch demands time, focus, and sacrifice, which can easily spill over into personal and family commitments. However, I am fortunate to have a strong support system, which has helped me cope with these pressures and stay grounded.

Strategically, I chose to align my vision with the last-mile LPG delivery value chain, because this directly addresses both the gaps in access and my personal mission of improving clean cooking adoption among households. I have also shifted my perspective of competition;  rather than seeing competitors as threats, I view them as potential collaborators whose services can complement mine to create greater industry impact.

Ultimately, I have leaned on resilience, partnerships, and results-driven credibility to keep moving forward. Each challenge has pushed me to think more innovatively, adapt quickly, and stay committed to proving that women not only belong in the gas industry but can also lead the transformation toward safer, cleaner, and more sustainable energy solutions.

Scaling and Sustainability

CcHUB: What are your plans for scaling your impact and ensuring sustainability in advancing the product?

Princess: Scaling the impact of my LPG-as-a-Service business goes beyond expansion; it is about creating a sustainable ecosystem that makes clean cooking accessible, affordable, and safe for every household, especially in underserved communities. My plan rests on four core pillars: accessibility, affordability, partnerships, and innovation.

On accessibility, I am intentionally building last-mile distribution networks that bring LPG directly to households and small businesses in rural and peri-urban areas. One of the ways I am doing this is by engaging women and youth as community energy agents. This not only extends the reach of LPG penetration but also creates employment and empowers local people to be champions of clean cooking.

On affordability, I recognize that the high upfront cost of LPG stoves and refills remains the biggest barrier to adoption. To address this, I am introducing innovative financing models such as pay-as-you-go metering, micro-leasing, and installment purchase options. This way, families can transition to LPG without the burden of large initial expenses, and instead pay flexibly as they use the service.

Partnerships are another critical part of my growth strategy. I plan to continue strengthening collaborations with government institutions, international development partners, private sector players, and civil society organisations. These alliances are essential for scaling operations, influencing policy reforms—such as safer cylinder management—and creating an enabling environment where women-led businesses in the gas sector can thrive.

Finally, sustainability will be driven by continuous innovation and data-driven decision-making. Through smart metering, digital tracking, and customer data insights, I can ensure efficiency across the supply chain, minimise service downtime, and enhance customer safety. This not only strengthens the business model but also builds trust and reliability among users.

In the long term, my vision is to scale beyond business metrics and contribute meaningfully to Nigeria’s clean cooking targets and broader climate goals. By reducing household dependence on firewood, we can curb deforestation, lower carbon emissions, and improve health outcomes for women and children, who are disproportionately affected by indoor air pollution. I see this work as part of a bigger mission: transforming lives, protecting the environment, and creating a model that can be replicated across Africa to accelerate the transition to clean, modern energy.

CcHUB: Have you been able to scale production or improve distribution since joining the Global Cleantech Innovation Program (GCIP) program? If so, what key changes have you implemented? Whether through scaling, production, or improving access to markets?

Princess: Yes, GCIP has supported COOKBLU in many ways:

• The training received during the international webinar series by NGIN and the National Academy anchored by Co-creation HUB helped us refine our business model, strategies and narrowed mapping strategies in identifying our actual customer segments unlike our initial broad customer segments. This saved our resources and lead time in customer acquisition. 
• Before GCIP, we have never raised funds, but after the GCIP programme, we leveraged on the knowledge received in terms of fundraising to land key investments as per grants of about $200,000.00 and still fund raising. We were able to also attract investors that are fully aligned with our vision and goals which is very key for us.
• While we experienced a temporary loss/crash of our initial tech, we were able to scale to one of the top 10 in the GCIP country competition which gave us a platform to participate in another programme, SME Scale Up, where we closed our first investment with Seven Up Bottling Company to redesign our mobile application.
• We have benefited from various visibility platforms at the global level such as being celebrated as a female founder during the 2024 International Women’s Day on the GCIP portal.

Collaborative Efforts and Future Vision

CcHUB: What kind of organisations or stakeholders would you like to partner with to amplify your efforts in this area?

Princess: I would like to partner with international partners that can support various intervening initiatives on clean cooking within hard-to-reach areas in Nigeria and beyond. I look forward to partnering with them in deploying COOKBLU to other countries with a country specific approach. 

To truly amplify my efforts in advancing LPG-as-a-Service and accelerating clean cooking adoption, I believe in building strategic, multi-sectoral partnerships that combine policy influence, financial support, technical expertise, and grassroots reach.

First, I would like to partner with government agencies and regulatory bodies such as the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Office of the SA to the President on Energy, and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, etc and related bodies. Their support is crucial for creating an enabling policy environment, ensuring safety standards, implementing the import duty certification and scaling LPG adoption nationwide.

Second, development organizations, international donors, and climate-focused foundations are important allies. Organizations such as UNDP, UNIDO, World Bank, and Clean Cooking Alliance can provide technical support, financing models, and global best practices to strengthen the LPG ecosystem in Nigeria and beyond.

Third, private sector players in the oil, gas, and energy value chain are essential. Collaborating with LPG producers, distributors, financial institutions, and technology companies can unlock affordable financing, improve supply chain efficiency, and introduce innovations such as digital payment solutions and smart metering.

Fourth, we are currently partnering with two NGOs in driving COOKBLU penetration in Abuja but hope to extend our partnerships to other NGOs in order to amplify the creation of awareness and sensitisation of clean cooking across the country. I see huge value in partnering with civil society organisations, women’s groups, and community-based associations. Since women and youth are at the centre of last-mile adoption, these partnerships will help build trust, drive behavioural change, and empower communities to embrace clean cooking as a lifestyle rather than just a product.

Finally, I am interested in engaging with academic and research institutions to support data-driven insights, impact measurement, and continuous product improvement.

In essence, I am seeking partnerships that are not only financial but also collaborative, inclusive, and mission-aligned—because advancing clean cooking is not just a business opportunity, but a shared responsibility for public health, gender equity, and climate action.

CcHUB: What role should the government play in nurturing a thriving cleantech ecosystem that empowers entrepreneurs like yourself?

Princess: The government has a vital role to play in nurturing a thriving cleantech ecosystem, and for entrepreneurs like myself, the most important thing is an enabling environment. This starts with supportive policies, reduced tariffs, and streamlined regulations that allow clean technologies to flow more freely into the market. Beyond policy, access to affordable financing, grants, and tax incentives is critical to help startups scale their impact.

At the same time, I believe government investment in research, technical training, and incubation programs can strengthen our capacity to innovate and build solutions that are both sustainable and commercially viable. Finally, by setting clear clean energy targets, embedding renewables into national development strategies, and encouraging adoption at the community level, the government creates a strong market for cleantech.

When these elements come together; policy, financing, capacity-building, and market creation, entrepreneurs like myself are not only empowered to innovate but also positioned to deliver affordable, impactful solutions that improve lives, protect the environment, and accelerate the nation’s clean energy transition.

CcHUB: Looking ahead, Where do you see your business in the next 5 years? 

Princess: Creating 5000 direct jobs through our soon-to-be-established 1250 LPG Micro Distribution Centers in selected communities. We would also increase our team as well as raise funds to set up our proposed composite cylinder manufacturing plant in Nigeria.

Personal Reflections

CcHUB: What motivates you to continue this work, and what advice would you give to other female founders focusing on similar goals?

Princess: The passion to see women receive climate justice and gain access to clean cooking technologies with little or no cost.

You’ve heard from Princess. Watch out for more of our entrepreneur spotlights.