Lauren Beighley
November 3, 2025
Announcing The 2025 Impact Award Recipient
Photo: 2025 IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award recipient
By Lauren Beighley
The IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award recognizes an individual who has had a significant impact on the engineering-driven entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The accomplishments of the candidate should be of “significant importance” and should have made a distinguishing contribution to the entrepreneurial ecosystem of a country/region.
The person/team will receive an honorarium of $10,000 USD and a plaque commemorating their achievement.
The IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award Committee identifies individuals/teams that are building innovations geared towards benefiting humanity and building a strong inclusive ecosystem.
The IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award Committee stated the following when asked why they made their selection. “In reviewing so many remarkable entrepreneurship stories, I was moved not only by their innovation, but by the human impact, to turn challenges into solutions that empower people, protect the planet, and promote inclusion where it matters most. As a judge, it was incredibly difficult to choose just one winner from over a hundred amazing entrepreneurs. Each of these inspiring stories reminds us that leadership and empathy are as essential to innovation as technology itself.”
IEEE Entrepreneurship would like to offer the utmost gratitude for the volunteer time and effort of our 2025 IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award Committee:
1. Suresh Nair
2. Susana Lau
4. Ghazi Saddem
6. Bernard Lim
Award recipients are scored and selected based on the following judging criteria:
1. Entrepreneurial Spirit
2. Value Creation
3. Impact
4. Sustainability
IEEE Entrepreneurship is excited to announce the 2025 IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award recipient:
Tunde Adeyemi is an award-winning cleantech innovator and environmental advocate dedicated to transforming Africa’s waste into clean power and opportunity. His journey began from personal loss—after his mother, Olive Adeyemi, a hardworking cassava processor, died from respiratory failure caused by years of cooking with firewood. Her passing became the heartbeat of D-Olivette, named in her honor, and the driving force behind his mission to end energy poverty and indoor pollution.
With a strong background in Environmental Education and over a decade of experience in sustainable energy, Tunde previously served as Operations Supervisor at the Nigerian Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (NACGS), promoting green agribusiness systems. His work has earned recognition from the United Nations, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), the French Government, and the British Royal Academy of Engineering. At D-Olivette, he leads with purpose—innovating for people, planet, and prosperity.
D-Olivette’s “Kitchen Box” is an AI-powered biodigester that turns everyday waste into everyday solutions. Using AI, USSD and IoT sensors, it converts over 30 types of organic waste—like food scraps, crop residue, and manure—into clean cooking gas, electricity, and organic fertilizer. It saves rural women, farmers, and off-grid communities money on fuel, waste management, and farming inputs, while cutting pollution and protecting the environment.
How has Tunde Adeyemi, the entrepreneur, made a distinguishing contribution to their country/region through the activities of their venture, D-Olivette, and who serves as a role model in the global entrepreneurial ecosystem?
D-Olivette is revolutionizing rural livelihoods and environmental outcomes through scalable, AI-powered biodigesters that integrate clean energy, agriculture, climate action, and women’s empowerment.
1. Household Health & Women’s Well-being: By replacing firewood and charcoal with clean biogas, D-Olivette drastically reduces indoor air pollution. In 2023, a Carbon Trust report confirmed that the project saved 100,000+ trees and processed 13 million kg of organic waste into clean energy. Footprint Africa verified 50,000 MT of CO₂ reductions annually, improving the health of 40,000+ women and children exposed to toxic smoke.
2. Agricultural Productivity: Organic waste is transformed into high-quality biofertilizer, boosting smallholder crop yields by up to 30%, while regenerating degraded soils. 
3. Clean Energy Access: Over 40,000 rural households and farms now benefit from affordable, renewable energy, reducing fossil fuel dependence.
4. Economic Empowerment: 5,000+ women entrepreneurs have been trained, creating sustainable businesses and jobs in clean cooking and biogas-to-electricity markets.
5. Climate Resilience: Beyond CO₂ reductions, deforestation in target communities has dropped by 60%, safeguarding biodiversity.
6. Technology Accessibility: A user-friendly, multilingual AI platform ensures rapid adoption, inclusivity, and scalability across diverse rural populations.
The IEEE Entrepreneurship Impact Award annually recognizes an entrepreneur making a significant impact on their community (or beyond) through the commercialization of technology and rewards them with $10,000 USD and a commemorative plaque for their efforts to benefit humanity.
