By Patricia Amogu
The Ministry of Youth Development, in collaboration with partners, has empowered 17 youths on various startups with the sum of N1million each.
The partners are the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Superteam and Saphittal.
The Minister of Youth Development, Mr Ayodele Olawande, spoke at the Nigerian Youth Academy (NIYA) Startup Pitch 2025 Competition in Abuja.
Olawande said that the idea behind the initiative was to support the government’s economic drive in developing the Nigerian youths.
He said that President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to NIYA was geared towards empowering the youths productively and supporting youth initiatives.
“We are ready to partner with a lot of private organisations; there is nothing Nigerian youths need now than to support them.
“Its main objective is to equip young Nigerians with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in today’s fast-changing economy.
“Through our One Youth, Two Skills initiative, we ensure that every Nigerian youth is empowered with at least two marketable skills that open doors to employment, entrepreneurship, and financial independence.
“So, I can tell you that in the next couple of months, you will see the 2.0 because we are not sitting down; we want to get more into the business and that is why we said we want to follow-up.
“We want to follow up to have the 2.0, 3.0 and the 4.0; we will have thousands of people to collaborate with as partners in few years from now,’’ he said.
Ashley Olika, Head of Product at Superteam Nigeria, said the organisation was very happy to be sponsoring a stellar event such as the NIYA Startup Pitch Competition.
She described the competition as a great initiative from the Federal Ministry of Youth Development.
“Special thanks to the minister for actually allowing Superteam Nigeria to come and collaborate and sponsor stellar ideas,’’ she said.
Mr Charles Oddi, Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), said the main objective of the competition was to provide funding for startups.
“We are very grateful to the other partners who made this a success, but the essential goal behind this is basically to provide funding for startups.’’
According to him, 70 per cent of our startups in Nigeria are youth owned and youth led and this is backed heavily by the minister.
“I say to our small businesses, you know financing in this part of the world, capital in this part of the world is very expensive and also very scarce and everywhere they see an opportunity for capital they should go for it.
“So, the tune of 25000 dollars approximately; that is around N40 to N50million has been earmarked for this and the winners we saw today were given the sum of 1million naira across different entrepreneurs.
“I am very certain that when you inject this capital into their businesses, the businesses will start to grow and start to thrive.
“We saw initiatives like the “boy boy” technologies; for instance, we also saw wash up technologies; these are businesses that are powering our everyday lives.”
According to him, the wash up is a business; it is like a drycleaning service powered by technology, boy boy technology is very similar.
“These are things that we do in our everyday lives but these are entrepreneurs, and we talk about how they can be empowered by technology,” he said. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Chijioke Okoronkwo