Zero Bola Catalyst
The Studio
Builds Innovation Driven Enterprises from data rather than hunches, across envirotech, agritech, and healthtech.
Explore the StudioA deep tech hub and venture studio in Kano, Nigeria
Building Innovation Driven Enterprises across Food, Environment, Health, and Wellbeing
- UNDP City Winner for Kano, 2022
- Both founders serve on MIT REAP Team Kano-Jigawa
- 300 hectare field station approved in Jigawa
Food, environment, and health are one system
You cannot grow safe food in damaged soil, and you cannot protect soil and water while food production and processing degrade them.
Waste is the broken link in that system. Zero Bola starts there, turning Kano’s waste streams into the raw material of a circular economy, and builds the ventures that complete the loop: climate resilient crops, clean soil and water, and science backed health products.
Kano has traded for more than five centuries. It has a busy industrial base, a vast agricultural and livestock hinterland, and waste streams large enough to feed a new bioeconomy. That is why the studio is here, and why the founders have committed to the city for twenty years.
Four pillars, one stack
Adapted from the CIC Cambridge model. Each pillar does one job, and together they turn a building into an ecosystem.
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Zero Bola Campus
The Campus
Laboratories, a fabrication workshop, a greenhouse, and 24/7 power, so science based ventures can be built in Kano.
Explore the Campus -
Zero Bola Atlas
The Atlas
The reference dataset on Kano’s waste streams, soils, waters, crops, climate, and medicinal plants.
Explore the Atlas -
Zero Bola Exchange
The Exchange
A weekly, bilingual gathering that connects founders, researchers, corporates, and the diaspora.
Explore the Exchange
Three venture clusters across the nexus
Circularity is the anchor. Agritech and healthtech complete the system and share the same laboratory, greenhouse, and data.
Envirotech
Anchor cluster
Waste to soil, energy, and materials: composting, biochar, insect protein, biogas, briquettes, plastics to products, and effluent treatment for tanneries and food processors.
Agritech
Full weight cluster
Drought resistant, early maturing seed for sorghum, millet, and cowpea, with soil and water management, integrated pest management, and livestock feed systems.
Healthtech
Full weight cluster
Pharmaceutical grade standardization of moringa, baobab, and senna actives, with affordable diagnostics, food safety testing, and nutrition products.
Each venture lowers the risk of the next. Circular biofertilizers need agronomy validation to sell, and botanical products share the same laboratory, Atlas data, and corporate buyers.
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Founders and builders
Apply to a studio cohort, join the Entrepreneur in Residence program, or book free founder office hours.
How we work with founders -
Researchers and students
Turn published research into ventures through the Science Fellowship and the Research-to-Venture Program.
How we work with researchers -
Corporates and agribusiness
Commission waste audits, circular strategy, and laboratory testing, or sponsor a Corporate Venture Challenge.
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Government and regulators
Use Atlas data and Zero Bola OS to measure waste services, set contracts, and pay against verified performance.
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Investors and development partners
Co-invest in the portfolio through Zero Bola LLC, or fund programs and public goods through the Foundation.
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Communities and the waste sector
Market associations, aggregators, and pickers take part as partners, with income, recognition, and co-ownership.
How we work with communities
Foundations already in place
Zero Bola is not a concept on paper. The legal, digital, and institutional groundwork is done.
- UNDPCity Winner for Kano, 2022, for the Zero Bola proposal
- MIT REAPBoth founders serve on Team Kano-Jigawa, Global Cohort 12
- Bayero University KanoPreferred hosting partnership, in discussion
- Two ventures incubatingSymbiocle and Zero Bola OS
- Jigawa field station300 hectares approved for Shabaru, led by our Co-Founder through ADAB Agri-Resources
- Kano waste systemNon-binding MoU signed in July 2026 by Certis, a founder-led company, with the State Ministry of Water Resources, Environment and Climate Change
Programs you can join before the campus opens
The campus is being renovated. The community launches first.
Ask the Expert
Global scientists, circular economy operators, and investors answer questions from Kano. Recordings become a podcast and video series.
Explore Ask the ExpertKano Waste Data Challenge
Teams analyze open and partial waste data and propose ventures. Prizes are fast tracks into the first studio cohort.
Explore the Data ChallengeFounding 100 Circle
Founders, students, diaspora professionals, and local philanthropists who commit before the campus opens, with founding rates and priority laboratory and event access.
Explore the Founding 100Executive Summary and Project Design
The full case for Zero Bola: theory of change, the four pillars, the revenue model, and governance.
Get the Zero Bola Dispatch
A newsletter every two weeks with Kano waste system stories, venture ideas, data previews, and program news.
Like to work with us?
Founders, researchers, and operators: tell us what you are building.
Interested in a potential partnership?
Corporates, funders, and institutions: let’s scope it together.