The Nation Newspaper

Tag: entrepreneurship

  • From Corps member, pupils get entrepreneurship tips

    From Corps member, pupils get entrepreneurship tips

    A National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, Miss Yetunde Sanni, of the 2014 Batch C, has trained 56 pupils from various public secondary schools in Lagos on some entrepreneurship skills.

    The Microbiology graduate of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), with the help of some others, took the pupils through make-up and head-gear tying, catering and event decoration, ankara craft, photography and bead making.

    Speaking to The Nation at the Isolo Local Government Development Area (LCDA), venue of the training, Sanni said since she would be signing out of the NYSC programme in October, she decided to do the training as a project and to contribute to the society.

    “As a young entrepreneur, my passion made me think about giving opportunities to other young people and I also saw it as giving back to the society while I am still doing my youth service,” she said.

    She said trainee pupils were drawn from seven school in Isolo LCDA, which she selected after visiting the schools as a means of catching the pupils young.  Asked how she got funds to carry out the project, she said the programme was funded by some corporate bodies, and some kind-hearted individuals.

    According to her, she raised over N350 000 for the project. As a professional make-up artist, Sanni said she taught the make-up class but got other professionals to teach the pupils other vocations.

    She called on the Federal Government to consolidate on its achievements on entrepreneurship.

    She recounted that her greatest challenge was funding. “It wasn’t easy for people to assist because it is not everybody that believes in your dream. You have to keep going to offices, writing letters and doing follow-up. If that is out of it, I think we will have a lot of things going on in our society.

    “We actually planned on empowering secondary school pupils only but adults came in to join us. I was surprised on the first day,” she added.

    She advised the students to continue from where she stopped.

    “It doesn’t stop here. This is just a starting point for you,’’ she said.

    On her part, HOD Education, Isolo LCDA, Mrs Olajumoke Akinyemi praised Sanni for her effort.

     

  • Buhari’ll encourage entrepreneurship’

    Buhari’ll encourage entrepreneurship’

    The former Press Secretary to the late Bola Ige and Aare Alaasa Olubadan of Ibadan land,Oloye Lekan Alabi has said the administration of President Mohammadu Buhari is capable of promoting entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

    He added that lack of rule of law and merit had been major setback to both political and economic development in the country.

    Alabi, who was the chairman of this year’s annual lecture whose theme was “Entrepreneurship: A Veritable Panacea to Youth Development” organised by a student forum from the University of Ibadan, said the time when rule of law and merit could thrive again as it was in the time of our founding fathers is here.

    Chief Alabi noted that the late politician, Adegoke Adelabu (aka Penkelemesi) was able to become a first African Manager of United African Company (UAC) at the age of 20 years and first minister at the age of 39 years because merit was used as a yardstick. He urged the present government to provide the citizens with adequate security and social amenities as a condition to promote entrepreneurship.

    In his lecture, the guest lecturer and former chairman of Advertising Practitioners’ Council of Nigeria (APCON), Chief Olu Falomo said entrepreneurship is the only way to sustain our economic development.

    He defined entrepreneurship as a process of starting a business with a capacity and willingness to manage it to make profit, saying the problem with Nigeria is that most businesses are owned by government, thereby inhibiting creativity and economic development.

    Chief Falomo, however, urged all up-and-coming entrepreneurs to anticipate challenges and be ready to make a breakthrough, saying that youths have the determination to succeed as entrepreneurs such as Aliko Dangote, Oba Otedeko and others.

     

  • Enactus entrepreneurship contest begins

    This year’s edition of Enactus National Entrepreneurship Challenge will start on Tuesday.

    The contest, which will hold at Civic Centre on Victoria Island, Lagos, will be attended by hundreds of students from higher institutions across the country.

    The event with the theme: Enabling progress, will afford participants to showcase their innovative ideas and solutions to many challenges in business, community-based and educational projects.

    The students are expected to tackle real problems that will have positive impact on people, business and society.

    In preparation for the contest, the participants visited cities and rural communities across the country to initiate projects that would impact and improve the quality of life and standard of living. The projects were nominated for the contest and students are expected to defend the feasibility of their work.

    Teams from over 40 tertiary institutions will present their individual projects before a panel of more than 60 business leaders, who will evaluate the projects’ feasibility and opportunities. The contestants will go through two preliminary stages and teams with best projects will proceed to the grand finale, where winner will emerge.

    The team that wins first position will get the chance to represent Nigeria at the Enactus World Cup holding in Johannesburg, South Africa between October 14 and 16.

    The event will feature a special competition for prizes in the second edition of Sahara Light Up Nigeria Challenge. The contest, sponsored by Sahara Group, is structured to stretch the creativity and ingenuity of the Enactus teams in developing energy projects that can generate electricity and conserve power for the future use.

    There will also be a Future Women in Leadership Forum, where women leaders in each Enactus team will be engaged in mentorship to develop their leadership skills and achieve their full potentials. The objective of forum is to provide answers to key questions on leadership, using practical life examples.

    Enactus is an international non-profit organisation that brings together students, academics and business leaders who are committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to improve the quality of life and standard of living of the people.

     

     

  • ‘Entrepreneurship key to Nigeria’s prosperity’

    How Nigeria can be a prosperous nation was the focus of discussion at a conference organised by the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State chapter of the African Students For Liberty (ASFL) last weekend.

    Speakers at the event with the theme: Fundamental of a prosperous society, included the Director of African Liberty Organisation for Development, Mr. Adedayo Thomas, a popular blogger and entrepreneur, Japheth Omojuwa, a management expert, Olaleye Rosiji and an Executive Board Member of Students For Liberty, Moronfolu Adeniyi.

    Rosiji told the participants to think beyond the four walls of the varsity, advising them to embrace entrepreneurship by developing their skills. He said they should not allow the condition of the society to limit their abilities but to deploy their talents to change the condition of the society.

    He said: “You need to maximise your potential, lead and make the best out of yourselves to have a prosperous society. You don’t need a university certificate to become an entrepreneur. The only thing you need to do is to discover your potential and see how it can be fitted into the society’s expectation. Money is not a requirement to become an entrepreneur, but a sense of fulfillment.”

    Omojuwa, a FUNAAB alumnus, said students should not to wait until their graduation before they could engage themselves in productive ventures. Narrating his experience, the blogger told the participants how he started Omojuwa.com while he was an undergraduate at the university. The news website, he said, has grown to become one of the biggest brands on social media.

    Omojuwa said the nation would be prosperous if young people could develop their skills to achieve prosperity. He advised the participants against wrong notion of giving back to the society, noting that the best way to give back to the society is to dream big and become successful.

    He also cautioned the youth against wasting time on trivialities, noting that any time lost could not be regained. He said: “Your activities should not be an excuse for failure if you manage your time properly. Except you have small dreams, nobody can cover his entire dream. The bigger dream is, the better we explore our minds to achieve more.”

    Thomas, who spoke on Principle of individualism, said  inventions and innovations that turned the world around were conceived by individual. He said the idea of collectivism would only result in laziness and lack of innovation.

    Giving example, Thomas said successes achieved by Sound City, a musical channel on digital television that unlock opportunities for many Nigerian hip-hop artistes, would not be possible if its owner, Tajudeen Adepetu, did not conceive the idea alone.

    “It is the collection of prosperous individuals that makes a prosperous society. If each individual in a society succeeds, such society can be said to have achieved prosperity,” Thomas said.

    Moronfolu gave participants tips on how they could benefit from SFL Local Coordinator Programme.

    The chapter ALSO President, Oladimeji Oguntoyinbo, hailed the participants for attending the event, hile praising members of the executive for the success of the conference.

    Participants at the conference included FUNAAB students and their colleagues from other institutions, such as Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY) in Abeokuta and Federal College of Education, Osiele.

  • Obama invites Onuegbu to speak on Global Entrepreneurship

    Obama invites Onuegbu to speak on Global Entrepreneurship

    President Barak Obama of the United States of America has invited Collins Onuegbu, Executive Vice Chairman Signal Alliance and Founder of Sasware, to speak at the 6th Annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES 2015) in Nairobi, Kenya on July 25 – 26.

    According to Courtney Beale, Senior Director National Security Council, “Your participation will demonstrate your personal commitment to the President’s long standing support for entrepreneurship and his call to action on May 11 to generate new investment in entrepreneur around the world.”

    Onuegbu who is a leading investor in technology and technology-enabled businesses has accepted the invitation. He will be part of a discussion in Intra-Regional Entrepreneurship and Trade at the summit.

    Speaking on his acceptance Onuegbu says, “There is need for more engagement and sharing of ideas to see how we can improve and support entrepreneurs in an emerging economy like ours. Nigeria entrepreneurs and angel investors need all the support they can get to grow their businesses and generate employment in order to reduce poverty.”

    It would be recalled that President Obama launched the GES in 2009 in order to bring together entrepreneurs and investors from across Africa and around the world annually to showcase innovative projects, exchange new ideas, and help spur economic opportunity. The 2015 GES agenda will focus on generating new investments for entrepreneurs, with a particular focus on women and youth. Since 2009, GES has emerged as a global platform connecting emerging entrepreneurs with leaders from business, international organisations, and governments looking to support them. This is the first time GES will take place in sub-Saharan Africa

     

  • Varsity lectures students on entrepreneurship

    Varsity lectures students on entrepreneurship

    The Ekiti State University (EKSU) has organised an entrepreneurship orientation for its students as part of its move to entrench vocational education in the school curriculum. The school had initially asked the students to pay N1,000 for the compulsory Entrepreneurship Skill Course (ESC), which was introduced last semester; this led to a protest by the students, who described the payment as extortion.

    Two months after the protest, the story has changed as the management gave reasons for students to participate in the entrepreneurship course. The ESC Director, Dr Abel Awe, said the school was ready to commence entrepreneurship course in the current semester.

    A 200-Level Law student, Kemisola Olalemi, said the course was being taught with inconsistent outline, noting that the ESC 201 examination taken in the first semester was different from what students were taught in the class. “The examination questions were purely objectives and there was no question on practical knowledge,” she said.

    Dr Awe reacted that the management made wanted the students to go through the theoretical aspect of the course before the introducing them to practice. He said: “Students must understand the reason they need to take the course and the benefits they can gain from it. Those in 300-Level and below are the major beneficiaries of this course, because they would have to go through two theoretical aspects before they are allowed to practise.”

    Anini Tega, a student of the Faculty of Art, asked to know why the management introduce the course when students could not get certification in it. He argued the course has increased students’ course credit load.

    In response, Dr Awe said the aim of the course was to train students to be self-reliant after their degree programme. “We don’t want to be producing graduates to be unemployed; we want to make our product to be employers of labour,” he said.

    The course, he said, would teach students how to start barbing, fish farming and snail rearing, fashion designing, bead making, make-up artistry, catering, furnishing and carpentry, graphic art designing, brick making and printing. He disclosed that the school had provided the equipment for the course and had employed personnel to train them in different areas.

    Dr Abel Awe said students needed not to worry about start-up capital for any vocation they chose, noting that the school had made arrangement with Ekit State Chamber of Commerce and Nigeria Development Bank for to the students to access soft loans of N100,000.

  • Entrepreneurship solution to poverty

    Students have been advised to acquire necessary skills that can make them self-reliant after school. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Ibadan (UI), Prof Gbemisola Oke, who was the guest speakers at a conference organised by Center for Entrepreneurship and Skills Acquisition (CESA) of the Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) in Ikorodu, said students needed to embrace entrepreneurship to be independent after school.

    Prof Oke, who spoke on Entrepreneurship education: A veritable tools for sustainable economic development, said despite being ranked as the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria battles unemployment because of its inability to promote entrepreneurship.

    She said: “It is common knowledge that entrepreneurship is not solely about business, skills or starting new ventures; it is a way of thinking and behaviour relevant to the society. Students should draw business plan, acquire skills and look for a better mentor.”

    She enjoined government to provide adequate funds to entrepreneurs, adding that tertiary institutions needed to review their curricula to train students that would generate employment through innovation.

    She added: “Government should support graduates with requisite training to enable them establish small and medium enterprises. Student should learn to create jobs while government should learn to create a good platform to tackle unemployment.”

    The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GOAD Consult Ltd, Dr George Adewoye, said without skills, it would be hard for graduates to survive life after school.

    He charged participants to explore agriculture to reduce employment and poverty in the country.

  • ITF challenges trainees on entrepreneurship, skills acquisition

    THE Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has urged its trainees to brace to the high  standards expected of them.

    It said it is committed to its objectives of producing skilled manpower that will drive the  economy.

    Its Director-General, Dr Juliet Chukkas-Onaeko, said its students  should imbibe the knowledge provided by the fund, and take charge of leading the nation and the continent into an era of sustainable economic development.

    She said the vision of economic leadership on the continent by the country could only be achieved when adequate attention and commitment is shown by stakeholders to imbibe youths with continuous vocational and technical training knowledge that can create jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for them and other citizens.

    The ITF chief noted that while  students have excelled in various technical and vocational sectors, it was important for the beneficiaries of the training to make the most use of it and become entrepreneurs.

    Warning the students against external and internal influences and activities that are capable of derailing their goals, she urged the beneficiaries to consider themselves lucky, considering that ITF’s graduates are “hot cakes” as far as employment, job creation and entrepreneurship in the industrial sector was concerned.

    According to her, the leadership of the ITF has remained focused in meeting the critical manpower needs of the country, despite the challenges and high cost of providing vocational and technical training.

    She assured the students of providing effective training for  them. She said excellence and high standards would continue to define the activities of the fund.

    Mrs Chukkas-Onaeko pointed out that some of the challenges the fund were inherited, urging some of its students who raised concerns over the elongated stay in the skills acquisition centre to remain calm.

    She urged the students  to focus on acquiring skills,assuring them that the challenge of securing more equipment for the centre was already being addressed by the agency.

  • Expert faults Fed Govt’s entrepreneurship programmes

    Expert faults Fed Govt’s entrepreneurship programmes

    Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Youth Chamber of Commerce (NYCC), Comrade Peter Ayim, has faulted the Federal Government’s Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) programme, arguing that it is an initiative that cannot facilitate growth of start-ups.

    The NYCC chief said though the nation’s policy makers seemed to appreciate the  positive impact of entrepreneurship and may have embraced the  concept, it is evident  that  they  have  not  been able to develop a result-oriented and sustainable policy framework and intervention mechanism targeted at supporting accelerated promotion and development of functional youth entrepreneurship.

    On the YouWin programe, he said: “Such short-term measures are usually handouts and tokenism that cannot in any sense facilitate and grow a functional start-up or microenterprise.”

    According to him, the prevailing evidence of the outcomes of most of such interventions is merely subsistent for those that are actually determined to start a business.

    Noting that the government has demonstrated commitment to promoting youth entrepreneurship through short-term intervention programmes, he regretted that most of the intervention programmes are limited and do not benefit a broad spectrum of aspiring youth entrepreneurs to facilitate  start-ups or assist youth entrepreneurs in expanding their businesses.

    YouWiN is an innovative business plan competition launched by the Federal Government to create jobs by encouraging and supporting aspiring entrepreneurial youths to develop and execute business ideas.

    But Ayim argued that the scheme is limited in scope, adding that since the government has demonstrated its commitment to encourage and support development of entrepreneurship through diverse intervention programmes, it is also important for the government to explore other credible vistas so that more people can participate in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector.

    “A dynamic mix of micro-leasing, micro-insurance and demand-driven business development services offered within a cluster should be encouraged,” he said.

    He added that this approach will enable more aspiring entrepreneurs who cannot meet the conditions of accessing available funding options to access appropriate equipment under a micro-leasing arrangement for their businesses while existing entrepreneurs access equipment to grow and expand their businesses.

  • Don advocates entrepreneurship education

    A renowned Geologist, Prof Oluwafeyisola Adegoke, has advocated that entrepreneurial studies should be introduced as a subject in primary and secondary schools.

    Delivering the 20th Ekiti State University (EKSU), convocation lecture, titled: ‘The entrepreneurship education initiative: Implication for higher education administration in Nigeria,’Adegoke noted that students of higher institutions should also take interest in entrepreneurship to the extent that after graduation they would likely become employers of labour instead of becoming job-seekers.

    Adegoke said entrepreneurship education seeks to provide students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to embrace entrepreneurial challenge in a variety of settings.

    He mentioned several areas where youths could start small manufacturing business such as local foods and drinks, flowers artisanal equipment, hair attachments, farming tools and tailoring, among others.

    “The national goal should be that not less than 25-30 per cent of our youths who attend the universities and other higher educational institutions should cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit at graduation,” he said.