Dr. Gekonge Duke is a food scientist with interests in food processing and preservation, food safety, quality, postharvest handling technologies and research. He is an experienced value-addition expert, lead trainer, and consultant in postharvest innovations for fruits, vegetables and therapeutic foods processing to reduce food loss and waste, with research interests in the processing of neglected Kenyan foods.

Dr. Gekonge has been assessing commercialialization of his research outputs and is incubated at the at the University of Nairobi pilot plant through which he has successfully developed, patented and market-tested several innovative food products, primarily tropical fruit wines, whole-fruit juices/nectars, and therapeutic products among others. His innovations emerged second in the 2022 Nairobi Innovation Week, attracting social and mainstream media attention, with the highlight being a feature on Citizen TV's Made in Kenya show (https://www.youtube .com/watch ?v=6v y7gpPbYB4).

Through commercialization, he has developed and demonstrated the sustainability of business models derived from research for the benefit of various actors along the value chain, including farmers, job creation for the youth, and access to processed quality and safe foods for consumers during the off-season.