According to a Chinese adage: Give a Man a fish, and you feed him for a day.

Teach a man to
fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. This has long been our guiding principle here at Enactus
Futo, as we take a look at a city, our city, Owerri. A region in the southeastern part of Nigeria,
known reputably for its overly engaged youths, wide markets and profitable start-up and
business. But these are accolades that dwell long in the past, as currently unemployment and
poverty are the others of the day, markets dilapidated, youths can’t grow sustainable business,
and the ratio of job seekers to job creators is 90:10.
There is indeed a need for a call to action. A move to make our youths go from fish seekers and
buyers to fishermen, to instill in them a wide range of entrepreneurial skills, create a conducive
environment for them to practice and hence drastically reducing the problem of
unemployment. The ENACTUS team from the Federal University of Technology Owerri saw this
as a problem and embarked on a research to seek for a solution, and in the year 2016 they
came up with a project tagged ‘Making an Entrepreneur.’ Although so many things happened
over the years, and entrepreneurial studies was incorporated as a course in tertiary institutions.
But we as a team realized that what was actually taught in class wasn’t actually what was
needed outside in the business sphere and in companies. They were taught soap making but
not how to pitch their soap making business to investors and also how to carry out partnership
and expansion. This was a problem and we knew it, so we made plans and projections but
these weren’t achieved due to political and social riots and vices that occurred in the school,
causing it to shut down for a period of time. But we didn’t stop there, in the year 2018; we
rebranded the project and tagged it ‘Becoming An Entrepreneur.’ Centered around students in
tertiary institutions in Imo state, BAE promises to solve the problem of unemployment, imbibe
youths with entrepreneurial skills hence enabling them to build sustainable businesses, we plan
to bridge the gap between what is learnt in school with what is faced in the outside world. And
so we set on a mission. We carried an online and offline needs assessment. In the online we
targeted graduates to find out if what they learnt in school has had any great impact on where
they are now, and in the offline assessment was carried out within Futo, specifically student
entrepreneurs. We collated these results and went into research and planning, and few weeks
later we applied to partner with Eventbrite (the organizers of Techstars startup weekend) and
we came to an agreement to host this event on the 6th-8th of July in our school. This is a 54-
hour event designed to provide superior experimental education for technical and non-
technical entrepreneurs. Beginning with Friday night pitches and continuing through
brainstorming, business plan development and basic prototype creation. It then culminates in
Sunday night demos and presentations. Participants create working startups during the event
and are able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks. The
weekend is centered on innovation, action and education, whether you are looking for
feedback on an idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, the
techstars startup weekend covers all. We also plan to train and empower over 20 students in a
wide range of skills and, and these individuals will train another 5 which gives 100 trained
individuals and these 100 empower another 10. This is a succession plan that will ensure
continuity and yield over 20,000 trained youths in the year 2020. We have also organized an
event in collaboration with the Futo business club, scheduled to hold on the 16th of July and it’s
called Futo Business Summit. This is a summit that seeks to train and educate youths on how to
grow sustainable businesses. Targeting students around Imo state, we’ve invited people who
have had their fair share of the tolls of entrepreneurship to advice and train the students on
certain skills, we’ve organized master classes, internship opportunities, and moreover lucky
individuals will be given a hub within and outside school. These hubs serve as workspaces for
student, providing them internet services, lighting and certain tools they require.
With all these mapped out, funding has been a challenge, also getting certain approvals from
the school management and also the school’s academic calendar has been burdensome on
students activities, but so far we’ve strived to achieve.
But in my own opinion I believe we haven’t done enough, a legacy that has come to stay won’t
be left when we graduate. Countries that have the same social problems also have similar
solutions. The Chinese also have this as a problem and the government knows it to. If we can
convince the government to organize a student entrepreneurial competition and to restructure
the entrepreneurship education across Nigeria, to make sure students are not only taught
about entrepreneurship but are taught to be entrepreneurs. Many university leaders can come
together with the presidency, led by the Enactus Futo to deliberate on better measures and a
model to tackle this problem, and leash out a fund to ensure its smooth running. A fully funded
innovation and creative competition could be annually organized in different universities to
promote this course and sponsor starting businesses. It could be a trust fund set out for every
student once getting admitted into the university, and once they come up with a good business
plan they get to cash it. Moreover each university must draft up their annual plan to promote
entrepreneurship in their institution and many more and all these sprung from the Enactus
futo’s movement.

A quote from Malcolm Forbes, ’When u cease to dream, you cease to live.’ The enactus futo
team has dreamt and is working daily to turn this dream to a reality because helping and
training people to see possibilities and take action is our little way of enabling progress in
Nigeria.