Andiru flying high in flower business

It’s amazing how we owe our successes to individuals that chose to believe in us. A teacher that saw smarts in you when others didn’t. A parent that cried with you instead of being quick to punish you. A friend that lent you money for that start-up business that even banks thought was a silly dream. A grandmother that told everyone in your presence that you were hardworking when the whole village (including yourself) knew you to be a sluggard from the book of Proverbs. 

At the core of believing in someone, lies the respect that all humans yearn for at a fundamental level. Because to believe in someone is to respect them. And to respect someone is to truly love them. 
Lucky is the human that encounters a few of such people on his or her journey through life. And in that regard, few of us could ever match Gladys Andiru Opiyo.  
Her father, Christopher Abiriga Anguti, was (and still is) a secondary school teacher that seems to have understood this early in life. He believed in Andiru every single day of her life. He still does.
 
“My father taught me that anything a man can do; a woman can do also. I loved science subjects and enjoyed performing better than the boys because of his encouragement,” Andiru says. 

This would give little Andiru the intelligence, confidence and independence that she needed to do very well in school. 
She adds, “Dad always challenged me to be the best; he would say, ‘if you don’t pass between the 1 - 10, you will have to repeat the class.’ It was always attainable. I worked very hard to be within that range. He taught me an amazing work ethic that has served me very well.” 
Her father was her muse and guardian angel. He was her cheerleader and friend all through her primary school at Moyo Town Council Primary School and Metu Secondary School for her O level. 

But failure happens to the best of us. It is bound to happen. At the end of A level in 1997 at Muni Girls, Andiru got a measly six points. She’d been reading PCB (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) with dreams of being a medical doctor. Six points was far below her potential and her father knew this as much as she. 
Andiru was so disappointed that she felt like taking a break from school. “So I asked dad to please let me stay home for one year and then take me to a school in Kampala. I knew I could do better and I was capable of doing better,” she says. 

Her father, chose to believe in her rather than force his wishes on her. He chose to let her do what was comfortable for her. And that decision alone, by Andiru’s admission, turned to be the most important turning point in her life. 
“This moment shaped me. For my dad to trust my judgement as a young adult was huge. Many people told my dad he was crazy to let me stay at home. It was crazy but he gave me a chance,” Andiru says. 
That show of respect from her father gave her the resolve to make him proud. That gesture of trust alone set in motion decisions and actions that changed Andiru’s life forever. 

When her 12-month break from school came to an end, Andiru was ready to start over. She joined senior 5 at Caltec Academy Makerere with one goal on her mind; to pass the A levels. She passed with grades so good, she qualified for a full government sponsorship to study medicine at Mbarara University of Science and Technology(MUST). But she chose not to apply for it. Instead, she chose to join MUK to study Agriculture, a course that she was overqualified for. But in that one decision, her stars aligned.

“I went to Makerere University in September 2001. I was admitted for Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. Three weeks into the programme, we had an opportunity to apply for a scholarship to Costa Rica. I applied and those points that God gave me, which were too much for Agriculture was exactly what I needed to be selected among those who applied. Two of us were selected and given full scholarship with stipend to go to study agriculture at EARTH University in Costa Rica,” she says.

“This was a scholarship offered by the Rockefeller Foundation. I had no idea where this country was. I called my dad and told him about this opportunity and asked his permission to let me go. He said if it was for the best, I should go but if not then I should stay in Uganda. I thanked God and thanked Dad, and  three months later, I left for Costa Rica - December 2001,” she says.
On arrival in Costa Rica, Andiru had a month to learn Spanish before starting her classes in the same alien language. There were four students from Uganda already at EARTH. Andiru looked them up to get the idea of what to expect. This cushioned her landing a little.

 
Learning a new language is hard enough without the pressure of knowing that it will be the medium of your course works just a month ahead. Which, in her case, was January 2002. 
“But the people were very nice, in fact too nice. They greeted you with a kiss and a hug, the students and teachers were very helpful. My roommate Andrea knew some English so we made a pact, she would correct my Spanish and I would correct her English. In the end, I spoke fluent Spanish and her English still needed improvement,” Andiru says.  

She adds, “These experiences taught me dependency on God, hard work and working with others.” 
Andiru graduated top of her class in 2005. With that came a one-year Scholarship to learn whatever she wanted --all-expenses paid by World Health Congress. This opened doors to internships in Ecuador (rose production), California, USA (flower market and production) and Holland (supply chain). 

“I love roses and wanted to learn everything about it” Andiru says.
In November 2006, Andiru returned home after the three internships mentioned above. She would spend that December preparing for GRE (Graduate Record Examination) with a plan to apply for further studies at The Ohio State University.

In 2007 she submitted the application with a concept paper to start a Supply chain management for Ugandan flowers. 
“I had done an internship with Uganda Flower Exporters Association in 2004 and it opened my eyes. I realised flowers are international, there was endless opportunity in it. One of the challenges the growers were facing was cold chain management. Sometimes flowers would arrive at the auction in Holland with cold or heat damage depending on how it was stored prior to leaving the farm or Entebbe,” Andiru remembers. 

Andiru would leave Uganda again in September 2009 for Columbus, Ohio, USA to pursue a Masters Degree in Horticulture and Crop Science at The Ohio State University. She arrived at school with $1000 in her pocket. That amount was reduced to $5 after paying rent. 
“I cried. I did not know where to get money from to finish the month. My father ended up sending me money to help out,” she says.

In 2010, Andiru would meet a Ugandan man through one of her professors that she would end up falling madly in love with. He’d just arrived from Lincoln, Nebraska to start work at The Ohio State University. One thing led to another in quick succession and the two got married in 2011. He is a Bioinformatics/Data Scientist at The Ohio State University. 

“He loves making sense of data and I love gardening. We co-founded a data science company called Patira based in the USA. Patira has projects in both developed and developing countries. Our projects in Uganda includes Domestic Revenue Mobilisation (Uganda Revenue Authority) funded by DFID, Bioinformatics consulting (Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere, University and University of the Sacred Heart Gulu and Muni University, Arua) and several others,” she says. 

When she’s not overseeing these projects under her NGO, she works with Profile Products as Technical Account Manager in Horticulture, overseeing the Northeast Region and Ohio. 

Profile
Who is Andiru?
When Andiru was one-year-old, her family fled the country and went to live in southern Sudan because of the war in 1979. They lived as refugees for close to 10 years in the areas of Torit, Rajaf and Juba before they returned to Uganda during the repatriation in 1988.