Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi - Executive Director

Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi - Executive Director, LEARNBLUE

Table of Content

1.	Activism
2.	LEARNBLUE
3.	Personal life
4.	Awards & Recognition
5.	References

Born in Benin-City, Nigeria, Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi is a Nigerian Climate Activist, Creative Director, Internationally Acclaimed Social Entrepreneur, Inspirational Speaker, Brand Curation and Management Consultant with years of experience building Start-ups across B2B E-Commerce, Agritech and B2C PR Agencies, Nonprofit, and Social Enterprises.

Personal Quote

"I decided instead of trying to fight the government and the older generation on climate change, I would take a different approach, which is educating my generation on the impacts of their everyday action on the environment.”

Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi
Joshua in 2021
Born	(2000-11-19) November 19, 2000 (age 20)
Nationality	Nigerian
Education	University of Benin (Nigeria)
Known for	Climate activism, Environmental activism
Organization	LEARNBLUE
Movement	Environmental Movement
Awards	Doha Debate #SolvingIt Honoree We Are Family Foundation Global Teen Leader
Website	www.learnblue.org/joshua-gabriel-oluwaseyi

Biography

Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi (born November 19, 2000) is a Nigerian Climate Activist^[1] specializing in social media advocacy and activism. He is the founder and executive director of LEARNBLUE, an international youth-led nonprofit that is inspiring Gen Z individuals to create sustainable and integrated solutions to global issues.

Activism

Joshua had always had a fascination for plants, how they grew and what role they played in the environment and our lives but it wasn’t until late 2018, at age 17 when he learnt about his allergies to fumigants and other air pollutants.^[2]

Following spring cleaning and assisting in fumigating his home, Joshua began having tuberculosis-like symptoms which led to diagnosing his allergies causing him health concerns. As a resident of Lagos City, infamous for it’s heavy traffic road with ill-serviced vehicles^[3] meant Joshua would have to live with high levels of air pollution, and low air-quality.

He began researching the impact of air pollution on public health and learnt that 40% of the world’s population suffered from allergic rhinitis caused by air pollution^[4] and in Nigeria, over 100,000 people have died because of air pollution-related causes every year since 2017^[5]. He calls this “the tipping point”, “I knew I had to do something if I wanted live in a pollution free, breathable air quality environment”.

In 2019, Joshua started the #ForACleanerLagos campaign which went viral on Nigerian Twitter with over 1.5 Million reach in a two weeks and spun a cleanup series recycling over 40000 pounds of plastic waste from blocked drainage and water channels and roadside just months after founding LEARNBLUE, a Gen Z led non-profit inspiring Gen Z to find solutions, take action and raise awareness on issues we consider a threat to our future. These issues are guided by the Global Goals 3 (Good Health & Wellbeing), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), 13 (Climate Action), and 14 (Life Below Water).

LEARNBLUE

Air pollution is a life threatening issue. The effect of air pollution on Climate Change is evident as greenhouse gases have remain a major contributor global warming^[6], but it only one part of an ecosystem of cycles, hence you can’t advocate reducing air pollution without advocating land pollution and water pollution.

Asides the obvious carbon emitters a lot of human activities cause air pollution. Ranging from the overuse of pesticides, bush burning to vehicle exhaust discharge all contributing to accelerating the effects of climate change and global warming^[7].

Why LEARNBLUE exist is to initiate conversations around different these pressing issues encouraging and inspiring Gen Z to make individual lifestyle changes to reduce their carbon footprint, They emphasize why Change Begins With YOU!^[8]

LEARNBLUE have actively participated in several different projects. They addressed the Amazon Fire by amplifying the #AmazonFire campaign days before it became mainstream. The campaign aimed to inform more people about the fire, and created a call of action through a petition to reach the Brazilian Government.^[9] The petition successfully collected 4.000+ individual signs and more than 150.000 organic views on social media.

Other notable LEARNBLUE projects include the #ForACleanerLagos campaign and has since morphed it into a globally feasible #ForACleanerNation Campaign spreading across 6 Nigerian states. Previously in collaboration with another initiative co-founded by Joshua called Cleaner Nation Initiative (CNI). Together they ran a campaign for 3 weeks across two months and cleaned up more than 40000 pounds of non-biodegradable waste. The #ForACleanerLagos campaign reached over 1.5 million people on social media within its first two weeks.

Personal life

Joshua was born in Benin-City, Nigeria^[10] before moving to Lagos, Nigeria at 8 to live with his extended family, where he attended 4th Avenue Primary School placing second position at the Lagos State Spelling Bee Preliminary and studied Sciences at FESTAC Grammar School, Representing his school in over 12 competitions including spelling bees and debates.^[11][12][13]

After graduating highschool in 2018, he took a gap year to build his nonprofit, LEARNBLUE and recently began pursuing a BSc in Statistics at the University of Benin, Nigeria, class of 2023.

Joshua currently works full time as Chief Operations officer at Supersonic Finance LTD^[14], whilst running his nonprofit as Executive Director and maintaining a full time student status at his university.

Awards & Recognitions

Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi has been honoured with:

2019 Award of Excellence in Entreprenuership, YESA
2019 Mentorship Challenge, AdamStart
2019 Young Innovator, International Connector^[15]
Named amongst 100 Most Influential Young Leaders in Nigeria, Democracy Youth Roundatable
2020 Global Teen Leader, We Are Family Foundation^[16]
2021 #SolvingIt Honoree, Doha Debates^[17]