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| Rasheed Adebiyi |
In
a post announcing the StartupOsun Conference in 2019, Dr. Ayo Olu
Ayoola made some revealing and scary revelations about the fate of startups and
small businesses in Osun as far as funding is concerned. He noted “In 2018, a
total sum of $334.5 million was pumped into the Nigerian Startup Ecosystem, none
of these startups are affiliated to Osun State.
Again, he observed that the Q2 Report of 2019 for Startup
funding revealed that $73.68 million, that is approximately N26, 524,800,000,
was pumped into the Nigerian Startup Space, and yet again Osun Startups were
not represented.
This statistics is enough to send concerned Osun Eggheads some
disturbing signals as to the state of the State Economy. Strong economies are
built on the power of small and medium enterprises.
The questions are what factors are responsible for this appalling
performance of the Osun startup sub ecosystem within the larger Nigerian
Startup architecture? The answers were provided by Dr. Ayo who reeled out the stats in the
first place. He posited and I agreed that it was obviously not for the
lack of ideas but for the lack of information and guidance.
Osun youths have the energy and the ideas to power the state Economy but
with little or no support. There is a dearth of opportunities to learn business
management skills, how to access funding and leveraging on funding
opportunities, designing successful business models and others.
This spurs this idea of a year accountable mentorship and training for
Osun youths who have the ideas but lack the required skill sets and knowledge
to run a successful business enterprise.
And I wondered just like Dr Ayo on the ripple effect of say a quarterly
private funding of N10 billion comes into Osun Startup ecosystem armed with the
right know how of business development and management.
That is one part of the story. Last Thursday 26 December, 2019, I was at
the Youth Camp organized by the NASFAT Osun Youth Wing to talk on Leading an
Impactful Life in 2020.
In the midst of the presentation and at a point when I alluded to the possibility
of foreign education some one in the audience exclaimed " èèyàn máa ni owo
gan o" (You must have huge fund). I quickly digressed and addressed
the issue. Whether the young girl was confused by or convinced with my
explanation, I may not be able to say.
But, the interruption, in a way was an eye opener. It clearly shows a
lack of information or awareness that seems prevalent among our youths in Osun
on how to secure foreign scholarships, fellowships, student exchange programmes and so on. And if we want a higher Osun, the quality of thinking must change.
So, the Osun SkillUp MeetUp is meant to serve as a platform to
bridge this gap. I intend to hold the hands of the selected applicants together
with my high net worth of friends spread across Nigeria and who have
agreed to volunteer to go down this land with me to train, advise and mentor
this young generation of entrepreneurs, change makers and aspiring career men
and women.
For the first cohort (start up), there is going to be a six-month
schedule of meeting spanning January to June. For the second cohort
(undergraduate and post graduate scholarship seekers), July to December is
their own period. We would have trainings that cover seeking scholarship
opportunities, applying for student exchange programmes, writing winning
letters of motivation and proposals as well as guiding them through the process
of applying for one or two scholarship opportunities.
It is a big dream. A tall one at that. But, I believe strongly it is
achievable. I am open to partnership, sponsorship and funding ideas too. It is
not a personal project. It is a call for our state to rally these youths and
ensure we have a better society. The alternative to this is frightening. We will continue to battle with
toxic conversation of online fraud and other creative financial crimes.
Infoprations’ Note: Rasheed Ademola Adebiyi is a lecturer at the Mass
Communication Department, Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State
This is a commendable development. God bless your wisdom sir
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