Telecoms firm, Globacom, has explained the reason it supported an entrepreneurial summit organised by the University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter of the Educational Management Students Association (EMSA). It is to assist youths and entrepreneurs create employment opportunities, it said.
Globacom’s Enterprise Sales Manager, Mr Jide Ibigbami, told participants at the event, held at the Faculty of Education Hall, to avail themselves of the company’s products, such as Glo Yakata and Oga SIM, to improve their innovative skills, saying the products were designed to be affordable for young people to enrich their search for creative ways to create jobs.
Ibigbami praised the association’s leadership for organising the summit on entrepreneurship, which he described as “very germane”, given the rate of unemployment in the country. He expressed optimism that the event would stoke the interest of the participants in innovation and offer them a platform to leverage opportunities that will make them self-reliant.
Globacom, he said, has designed technological solutions to assist students in all levels of education in improving their skills towards achieving their life dreams.
He said the telecom firm has a campus wi-fi service with access control that prevents students from visiting phishing websites that can damage their mobile devices. He also said Globacom initiated “Personal Trackers” product, which parents could use to monitor their children’s movement.
Delivering a paper titled: Surviving in a depressed economy, UNILAG’s Director of Entrepreneurship and Skills Development Centre, Dr Sunday Adebisi, described an entrepreneur as “a person with an eagle eye to spot opportunities and convert them to profitable business ventures”. He challenged the students to come up with various entrepreneurial ideas in their fields of study.
He said entrepreneurs solved real life problems with innovation and creativity. He said students must embrace innovation to be to problem solvers, adding that rushing after white-collar jobs could make them jobless after school.
Adebisi called for a national policy on entrepreneurship and a review of the country’s curriculum to provide for intensive entrepreneurship and innovation studies.
A 400-Level Education Management student, Maryam Davies, praised Globacom for supporting the event, saying the summit gave her the opportunity to learn how she could take advantage of social media to create job opportunities for young people.
The association’s Welfare Secretary, David Makinde said the summit had empowered the participants and inspired them to solve problems.
“It is not compulsory the idea should be a new one, but we must devise practical solutions to make life better for all of us,” David said.