On a Tuesday morning in late May 2025, Fobeh Julius Nkenganyi stands on a hillside in Buea’s Molyko neighbourhood, a ruggedised tablet in one hand and a satellite-linked GPS device in the other, scanning the landscape below. On the screen, a digital map of the city glows with dozens of coloured markers, each pinpointing a location where his team’s remote-sensing algorithms have identified an accumulation of non-biodegradable waste.
“You see this cluster here,” he says, pointing to a dense concentration of red markers near the market road. “That is a major dump site — mostly plastic bottles, nylon bags, and packaging. Our sensors detected it three days ago. By this afternoon, our collection team will be there.”
Fobeh is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of GeoEnvi Tech Cameroon, a Buea-based technology company that uses Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, GPS mapping, and geospatial remote sensing to identify, track, and facilitate the disposal and recycling of plastic waste across Cameroonian cities. The company, formally registered in March 2024, is one of the most innovative climate technology ventures to emerge from Silicon Mountain, the nickname given to Buea’s rapidly growing technology and innovation ecosystem.
Mapping the Plastic Crisis
Cameroon produces an estimated 290,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually, according to a 2024 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Much of it ends up in unmanaged dumpsites, clogging drainage channels, contaminating waterways, and, when burnt, releasing toxic greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Plastic waste in Cameroonian cities has been linked to flooding, as drains become blocked, and to the spread of malaria, as stagnant water collects in discarded containers, providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Traditional approaches to waste management in Cameroon have long been overwhelmed. Municipal authorities lack the resources to adequately map, collect and process plastic waste, and informal recycling networks, while active, operate without systematic organisation or data.
It is precisely this gap that GeoEnvi Tech was designed to fill. Using a network of remote sensors, drone overflights, satellite imagery and community reporting through a mobile application, the company’s platform continuously updates a real-time digital map of waste accumulation points across Buea and, increasingly, in Douala and Yaoundé.
“We are solving a data problem,” Fobeh explains, seated in GeoEnvi Tech’s modest office in Buea’s Bonduma district on 27 May 2026. “Nobody knows where all the plastic is. Nobody has mapped it. So it doesn’t get collected. With our technology, we can see it. We can prioritise it. And we can organise for it to be removed.”
From Detection to Action
The operational model that GeoEnvi Tech has developed is deliberately practical. Once the platform identifies a significant accumulation of non-biodegradable waste, the company’s operations team contacts local waste collectors and recycling partners to coordinate collection and ensure that recovered materials are channelled to appropriate recycling facilities rather than being burnt or dumped elsewhere.
Since launching its pilot operations in Buea in September 2024, GeoEnvi Tech has coordinated the removal of more than 12 tonnes of plastic waste from informal dump sites across the city, according to company records reviewed by News Wire. Approximately 60 per cent of the recovered material has been processed through a partnership with a Douala-based recycling facility that converts polyethene terephthalate (PET) plastic into construction materials and textile fibres.
“We don’t just collect and forget,” says Nadège Bih, GeoEnvi Tech’s head of operations, who joined the company in early 2025. “We make sure the plastic goes somewhere useful. That is the only way this makes a real difference to the environment.”
Silicon Mountain’s Climate Conscience
GeoEnvi Tech’s work sits within a broader movement of socially conscious technology entrepreneurship that has made Silicon Mountain one of Africa’s most-watched innovation hubs. Since the founding of Cameroon’s first tech hub, Activspaces, in Buea in 2011, the city has produced a remarkable cluster of technology startups tackling everything from fintech and healthcare to agriculture and, increasingly, climate and environment.
The climate technology segment of Silicon Mountain’s ecosystem has grown significantly since 2022, driven by accelerator programmes, rising climate awareness among young Cameroonian entrepreneurs, and the stark visibility of climate impacts in a city that sits on an active volcano, surrounded by visibly changing forests.
Other Silicon Mountain ventures working on climate-linked challenges include Agri-Tech Cameroon, which uses mobile technology and data analytics to help smallholder farmers adapt crop planning to shifting rainfall patterns; SolarBay, a startup deploying affordable solar energy solutions to rural communities; and EcoTrack Cameroon, which partners with community forest management groups to monitor deforestation using mobile applications and satellite data.
“What you are seeing in Silicon Mountain is a generation of young Cameroonians who understand that climate change is not an abstract future threat, it is happening here, now, to their families and their communities,” says Nfor Sanyu Sylvanus, Director of Activspaces, in an interview on 30 May 2026. “They are building technology because they see a problem, and they want to solve it. That is the most powerful kind of innovation.”
Scaling the Vision
Fobeh Julius Nkenganyi is candid about the challenges facing GeoEnvi Tech as it seeks to expand beyond its Buea pilot. Funding remains the central constraint. The company has received seed support from a German development finance institution and a small grant from an African climate innovation fund, but Fobeh says it needs substantially more capital to build the team, expand the sensor network and pursue full deployment in Douala and Yaoundé.
“The technology works,” he says. “The model works. What we need now is investment and policy support from the government. Plastic pollution is a climate issue. It should be part of Cameroon’s national climate action plan. If it were, there would be public money to support what we are doing.”
As the world prepares for COP31 in November 2026, Fobeh hopes that the fellowship of international climate diplomats gathering in Antalya will pay greater attention to the role of technological innovation in low- and middle-income countries. “Africa is not just a victim of climate change,” he says, packing up his equipment as the afternoon light fades over Mount Cameroon. “We are building solutions. The world should be investing in us, not just pitying us.”
Back on the hillside, the red markers on his digital map are slowly disappearing, one collection at a time.
By Yanick Fonki Ndeley l CCMN l South West Chapter
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