Twenty-nine year old Valentine Okoli from Enugu State has emerged winner of Channels TV’s social enterprise programme: Fund it Forward Season 2. He won a cash prize of 30million naira grant. Okoli whose business name is Bach and Moen Limited, beat thirty year-old Thara Aisha Atta from Kogi State who emerged as the first runner up. Atta bagged 15million naira and her business name is High Collar Sustainable Solutions Limited. Second runner up is thirty-one year old Ayodele Erinle who hails from Abeokuta in Ogun State emerged the second runner-up. He bagged 10million naira. The name of his business is Agrify.
Fund it forward is a social enterprise competition organized by Channels Television.
Twelve change agents, who have early stage businesses that directly or indirectly take on one or more of Nigeria’s social issues were brought together across the country.
Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani stated that there is a clear deference between innovators and entrepreneurs as entrepreneurs monetize their inventions. “You can be an entrepreneur without being an innovator. But you can also be an innovator without being an entrepreneur. You can’t be passionate about finding solutions to societal issues and you are keen on how to monetize it. The reality is that for us to move forward, we need social entrepreneurs.
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“There is no better way to support development of the nation than to support platforms like this.
What you have created today is a platform to raise social entrepreneurs that will help find solutions to our problems. We should encourage innovators to help find solutions to our problems. To leap frog the development we all desire, we need programmes like Fund it Forward,” he added.
Representative of Enugu State Governor and Commissioner for Information, Aka Eze Aka described the programme as a reassurance that there is hope in Nigeria for the youths. He disclosed that in Enugu State, there are about 40,000 people being trained to understand ICT and Artificial Intelligence.
Executive Producer of the programme, Zemmy Momoh described the show as special while lauding the contestants for taking a “leap of faith” by participating in the show.
“We have been blessed to have some remarkable contestants – Change Agents as we call them. All of them took a leap of faith and they came with us on a new ride. I sincerely hope it is unto bigger and better for them,” she said.