Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, is a social entrepreneur, with expertise in Public Service, Social Enterprise, climate change, Recycling, Economic Opportunity and Sustainable Development. She is the co-founder of Wecyclers, and the current Director-General of the Lagos State Records and Archives Bureau (LASRAB).
Bilikiss was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. She completed her secondary school education at Supreme Education Foundation Secondary School, Lagos. She graduated from Fisk University in 2003 with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and then earned her first Masters in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University in 2005. She worked at IBM for five years before earning her MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012. During her time there, she was a Legatum Fellow at MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship and the Vice President of the MIT Sloan Africa Business Club.
In 2012, Bilikiss moved back to Nigeria and co-founded Wecyclers Corporation, a profit-making social enterprise specialised in the promotion of environmental sustainability and economic development through the recycling of waste, particularly plastics. The company changed the status quo in the waste management ecosystem by offering incentives to low-income Lagos residents to recycle right at home while supplying their recycled waste to Wecyclers for crushing and reuse.
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In September 2017, Bilikiss stepped down as the CEO of Wecyclers in the same year she was appointed as the General Manager, Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency (LASSPARK). In September 2019, Bilikiss was redeployed to the Lagos State Records and Archives Bureau (LASRAB) where she currently serves as the Director-General. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), which was established by the Lagos State Government to provide financial support to residents of Lagos State, for job, wealth creation and to tackle unemployment.
Bilikiss is also an active public speaker, reaching audiences in Nigeria and globally at events such as Thinking School Africa 2015, Founders Conference 2016, the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit and Expo (YES) Nigeria 2016 and Women in Business Conference 2016. She was recognized as one of the 2016 Quartz Africa Innovators, identified as one of Africa’s Top 5 Entrepreneurs in the Waste Recycling Business by Smallstarter, named one of the 2016 Ventures Africa 42 African Innovators to Watch, and honored as one of 20 African Women with Powerful and Inspiring Voices by Applause Africa. She is a Carroll Wilson Fellow, an Echoing Green Fellow and a 2013 recipient of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards. She has received coverage on CNN, Huffington Post, The Economist, Ndani TV amongst others.
Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola is an inspiration and we are proud of her.