In Katsina State, North Western Nigeria, 8 out of 10 youths are economically disadvantaged, due to terrorism, economic instability, poverty, and poor enabling environment, and do not have access to entrepreneurship and digital skills that could reduce unemployment rate and promote massive increase in employment opportunities and business startup. I collaborated with 5 successful entrepreneurs, to initiate “Walk for Entrepreneurship”, a community advocacy program that brought together budding entrepreneurs, I partnered with 2 businesses to distribute free toolkits on entrepreneurship skills.
I created 3 week program to coach, train & mentor 1,000 youths, as well as incubated and launched 3 selected startup ideas through “Youth Entrepreneurship Support Hub”. I teamed with 5 business professionals, who served as panel of judges, and business coaches, who mentored 3 startup founders, to grow their business idea, in order to position it for investment funding.
After, the 3 week program, I guided these 3 startup founders to win $25,000 Tony Elumelu Foundation Grants as well as developed partnership with Department of Empowerment and Special intervention (DESI), in Katsina State Government, to shortlist 10 viable business ideas for funding supports, growth plan and consistent free entrepreneurship training toolkit supply. So far, over 200 new employment opportunities were created by all of these entrepreneurs, which created massive impact and improvement to the Katsina State socioeconomic livelihood.
I aim to consistently train, mentor, and coach 150,000 Katsina’s Youths connecting them with entrepreneurship and digital skills as well as investment funding, through annual conference, paid coaching program, Hackathon and pitching competitions. I am running this initiative in order to contribute to economic development of North Western Nigeria, while creating opportunities for decent jobs for unemployment youths in Katsina State, Nigeria.