MEET our team

founders

Thomas Poelmans
Managing Director

Starting his career at Deloitte, Thomas quickly became responsible for a service line supporting international organizations manage their operations in Africa providing audit, M&E, risk management and project management services.

In 2012, he was one of the people behind the launch of WorldLoop, as project director of WorldLoop, Thomas supported the start-up of 15 e-waste recycling companies across Africa.
In 2014, he started working as an independent consultant and project developer in recycling and renewable energy projects. His clients include the World Bank, the Belgian government, the French development cooperation and the Port of Antwerp.

In 2015 he co-founded NAMé Recycling, a plastic recycling company operating 3 factories in Cameroon having recycled 30 million bottles to date. In 2016 he started developing Hydrobox.

Thomas holds a master in Economics and International Politics, a Prince II certification in project management and is a World Bank trained M&E expert. His work received various awards, including the Belgian Business Awards for the Environment (2013), the Sustainable partnership award (2014) and the Business without borders first prize (2015).

John Magiro
Technical Director

John grew up in a small village in Murang’a Kenya, about 3 hours drive from the capital Nairobi. Growing up, no one in his community had electricity. The nearest electricity pole was 15 km away.

After seeing his mother struggle, he decided to build his first micro hydro power plant using everyday objects. His talent was quickly noticed, allowing him to scale up and professionalize the technology, constructing a dam that channels water to a turbine and generates electricity. John built a hydro power plant providing affordable electricity to over 250 households and through his involvement in Hydrobox, plans to build many more.

John is the winner of the Switch Africa Green – Seed Award 2016, the East Africa Hub Grant 2017 and the WWF Africa Youth Awards 2017