Nextford University has concluded plans to empower entrepreneurs and owners of businesses in Nigeria.
This, the next-generation university said, would help grow the economy of Nigeria.
Nexford’s Country Manager, Nigeria, Olamidun Majekodunmi, made this known on Monday.
She said there would be an Open Day on September 21 at Oriental Hotel in Lagos for the entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas.
The Open Day, themed ‘Entrepreneurs Breaking Barriers’, would see entrepreneurs winning scholarships and funds for their businesses.
According to Majekodunmi, Nexford is equipping entrepreneurs to reduce unemployment crisis in Nigeria.
She said: “United Nations projects that Nigeria will be the third most populous country by 2050 with nearly 400 million people. We can’t create jobs fast enough to meet this demand of the labour force. Empowering entrepreneurs to create the jobs of the future is the only way out of Nigeria’s unemployment crisis.
“Nexford university operates a ‘glocal’ model with a curriculum that is globally relevant but also locally tailored. The MBA final project allows learners to focus on their local business in their immediate environments and also allows students to graduate in Washington DC and access their global network.”
While emphasising its passion about empowering entrepreneurs, the university said in a statement, “Nexford is a next-generation university passionate about forward-thinking entrepreneurs thinking about the future. The university recently launched a $200k startup funding for its graduate earning undergraduate degrees in business or Masters in Business Administration (MBA) on an entrepreneurship track.”
The statement also read, “The university has also announced the date of its next Open Day on September 21 at Oriental Hotel in Lagos, and themed around entrepreneurs breaking barriers.
“Entrepreneurs will have the chance to pitch ideas at Nexford’s Open Day and win scholarships and funding for their businesses. Registration is free at nexford.org/lagos.”
The university also stated that Nigeria needed more entrepreneurs that could tap into various business ideas available in the country.
It said, “In a recent seminar in Washington DC., Nexford professors discussed characteristics of entrepreneurs with students from emerging markets. Entrepreneurs are usually classified into necessity-driven and opportunity-driven types. Necessity-driven entrepreneurs are those who are pushed into starting businesses because they have no other source of income.
“Opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs are those who enter business ownership primarily to pursue an opportunity. Research shows that typically, necessity-driven entrepreneurship is more dominant in emerging economies like Nigeria.”
The statement added: “In the most recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey of Nigeria, 74 per cent of female early stage entrepreneurs reported that they were opportunity driven entrepreneurs. This was the same percentage recorded for men.”
While lauding the presence of many entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Nexford reiterated the need for quality.
“Low-income countries such as Nigeria and Zambia have the highest entrepreneurship rates in the world. For high value entrepreneurship to occur, quality matters more than quantity. Therefore, a country needs to have the best entrepreneurs, not necessarily the most. What the ‘best and the brightest’ do is important.
“Just as education prepares individuals for paid work, education also endows business owners with the needed expertise for success,” it said.