Skills and Entrepreneurship

Our solution is committed to solving the problem of extreme poverty in Nigeria which affects over 90 million people, nearly half of the population.  Related to this are: high youth unemployment (55+%); Digital Divide; human trafficking; threats to social cohesion.  The key reason for the problem is lack of access to 21st skills and Entrepreneurship Opportunities.

Our Solution is centered on development of 21st Century Skills and Entrepreneurial capacities among the Underserved and has 4 components:

1. Digital Literacy to bridge the Digital Divide

2. 21st Century ICT Skills to take advantage of global job opportunities.

3. Skills in diverse Service Industries to meet rising demand

4. Entrepreneurial Education and Fundraising to establish small businesses. 

 Our solution will impact lives of the Underserved globally through providing required skills and entrepreneurship capacities to explore opportunities.  Lessons can be used in implementing programs to address challenges of poverty and meet key SDGs

We are working to providing solution for Good Jobs & Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

Over 90 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty posing increased threat to social cohesion due.   Due to poor quality education system, 95% of higher education graduates lack employable skills. Youth unemployment is 55% with 25 million youths - 12.5% of the total population not in employment.    They have turned to violent crimes, human trafficking; domestic servitude; sexual exploitation; political thuggery and forced labor in street vending as well as fertile recruiting grounds for armed insurgency which is making Nigeria continually fragile.   The COVID-19 Pandemic has further exposed the challenge of extreme poverty in Nigeria with the difficulty in enforcing lockdown and controlling community transmission as poor citizens with little social palliatives from the State, insist on going out to try to eke out living.

Globally, the challenge of extreme poverty persists, mostly in the Developing World.  Of the 736 million population of extreme poor in 2015, half lived in five countries of India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

 Factors contributing to the problem that relate to our Solution are

1. Lack of access to 21st Century employable skills;

2. Poor Entrepreneurial Spirit   

3. Digital Divide 

The solution is a Skills and Entrepreneurship Development Program aimed at developing skills and entrepreneurship capacities for the 21st Century society as well as the capacities to raise funds to startup and expand businesses.  It has four components:

1. Skills Development in 2 key areas:

a. Information and Communications Technology 

Short- and long-term skilling, re-skilling and upskilling in specialist areas of ICT such as Software Development, Networking, Web Development, Information Security, Artificial Intelligence, Data Sciences, Graphics Design; Media Technology.

b. Product Development and Services 

i. Product Development

Skills in Small-scale agriculture; production of basic consumer goods; leather craft; clothing; paints

ii.  Services

Skills in the Services industry including - Culinary Arts; Fashion Making; Hair/Beauty; food processing/and marketing; electronic commerce

2. Entrepreneurship Development

Develop entrepreneurial capacities and raise funds to setup, expand and run (small) businesses.

3. Sports and the Arts

Develop and manage the Sports and Artistic capacities of youths to get them off the street.

4. Digital Literacy

Bridge Digital Divide and support  the needs of Public Schools.

The processes use professionals and mentors to lead skills development.  These are hands-on in laboratory, workshop and real-life settings.  Technology is central to delivery as strategy for sustainability.

The solution serves segments of the 90 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty, including:

1. Over 25 million poorly-skilled unemployed youths

2. Over 1.5 million annual School Leavers

3.  Women and girls bearing the brunt of extreme poverty

4.  Street children

5. Employees/Employers seeking reskilling and upskilling

6. Public school children with no access to Digital Literacy

Extensive studies have been carried out to understand their needs using questionnaires, interviews, observations, literature review and piloting which have helped to understand best approaches to addressing the needs.  

The solution will address these through extensive provision of Skills and Entrepreneurship capacities to exploit opportunities to excel.

The Skills Development Programs provide 21st Century Skills in specialist areas of ICT, enabling them take advantage of growing opportunities in the global economy.

Skills in the production of goods and services take advantages of extensive economic potentials of Nigeria in meeting demands for goods and services to the economy. 

Entrepreneurship Development and fund raising capacities will propel the development of SMEs, creating jobs and wider opportunities that impact the economy. 

The Digital Literacy Program bridges the Digital Divide.

Sports and Arts program channels the energy of unemployed and street youths to excel in these areas.

Our solution provides the target population with skills and competences to enable them address the problem of extreme poverty and poor skills in Nigeria which has direct relationship with lack of employable skills and poor support for the growth of SMEs.  This will enable them to take advantage of extensive job and business opportunities.   The solution relates to two dimensions of the Challenge of providing Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship:

1. Providing Skills Development Programs in Information Technology, Product, Services Development and Digital Literacy

2. Supporting Development of Entrepreneurship capacities and access to capital to startup and expand small businesses

Our solution targets the shortcomings of current efforts at addressing the problem of extreme poverty, low skills base and poor support for the growth of SMEs.  Extreme poverty in Nigeria is caused by the absence of efficient public leadership and an education system that is unable to transform citizens into assets for society due to a curriculum that lacks dynamism, absence of Technology Integration and Entrepreneurship.  Our solution therefore bridges the gap in the provision of skills for significant sections of the unskilled population so that they can have the opportunity to take advantage of new opportunities of growing economic activities in Nigeria and around the world especially in the areas of Information Technology and Production of Goods & Services.  Further, through the development of Entrepreneurship skills and support to raise funds to fund their operations, the targets of our solution have the options of starting and expanding their own small businesses.  The solution also targets women to support involvement in productive activities, enabling them enhance their economic capacities to support the education of their children.  The Digital Literacy component bridges the wide Digital Divide and prepares participants for more active participation in society.

The key competitors to our program are mostly from government agencies.  However, these are politically-inclined as most of the times, participation is based on political affiliation which ends up not benefitting those who need it most.  There is also the challenge of corruption in implementation that ends up seeing the resources not efficiently applied for effectiveness.

Technology is at the center of the provision of our solution in the provision of Skills and Entrepreneurship Capacities.  As a new business model, key technologies to be applied include:

Internet Technology:  Installation of Internet Infrastructure to enable seamless communication and access to information.

Computer Hardware:  The solution will utilize diverse computer hardware in implementation.  These include computer systems; interactive boards; tablets

Computer Software:  These will include software to support learning in specialist areas of ICT, Telecommunications and Electronics

Simulation Software: These are software to support learning in design and production processes

Learning Management System:   to support administration and delivery of the solution through documentation, tracking, reporting and automation.

Virtual/Online Learning Platform:  Use resources by key provides such as Google, Microsoft, etc. towards provision of the solution at anytime, anyplace.

The Technology that the solution seeks to apply is widely used across the globe for delivery of skills.  These are used for communication, storage of information, delivery of teaching, learning and management of information resources.  Diverse educational institutions and organizations around the world rely on them for greater efficiency in teaching, learning, research and community services.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought these Technologies to the fore as they are supporting virtual learning.  They are also key to plans towards education delivery in the post-COVID-19 era.

The solution will extensively impact the problem as it is the primary requirement for addressing the desired change.  Development of skills among the target population will provide the opportunities to actively participate in national economic and social life and reduce poverty.  Nigeria, as a Developing Economy with diverse natural resources is a key destination for Foreign Direct Investment.  These Investors require skilled manpower to succeed in the management of productive resources.  The activities of the solution will ensure that organizations have access to skilled manpower in areas of Technology, Production and Services.  Small and Medium Enterprises which is a key sector to dynamic economies are underdeveloped in Nigeria.   Entrepreneurship Development skills, integrating capacities to access funds will support the target population in leading the growth of SMEs.  These can lead the development of new products and expand existing ones, playing roles in small-scale agriculture and marketing; promote food storage, processing, marketing and reduce waste; they can provide key goods and services locally.

Jobs creation will reduce unemployment and poverty.  The Digital Literacy bridges the Digital Divide with the target population being in better position to exploit Technology for personally and professionally. 

Apart from impacting the target population, the long-term impact on the wider society include greater economic prosperity and global economic competitiveness resulting from skilled manpower and enhanced productivity.  This will further lead to a more cohesive society where citizens are assets to society.  The results of the solutions can also be used to support similar initiatives.

Results have shown the solution as ideal approach to addressing the problem.  In interviews with unemployed on the streets showed that 100% would welcome the opportunity to improve their skills and access capital to establish small businesses.  Most want to take advantage of production of consumer goods and services.  Similarly, unemployed graduates welcomed the opportunity to develop skills in the areas of ICT to take advantage of job openings.

The World Economic Forum in its submission (here), highlighted the importance of skills, education and technology towards addressing the problem.  Similarly, other studies (here and here) made similar conclusions.

The solution currently serves the following:

1. 50 youths and adults are trained bi-weekly on

Entrepreneurship Development.  This includes supporting them in the preparation of Business Plans to apply for
low-cost finance from  Government Program
to enhance access to capital for start-ups and small businesses.  The training is currently interrupted due to
the lockdown resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic

2. 30 youths are participating in IT Skills Development starting with Digital Literacy before specializations

3.  80 children participation in Digital Literacy to support integration of Technology in education

In one year, the solution aims to be serving the following annually:

1. Technology Skills Program     -        1,750

2.  Product and Services Skills    -        3,500

3.  Entrepreneurship Development -      5,500

4.  Digital Literacy Program          -        5,000

5.  Sports and Arts Program        -        100

In the fifth year, the Solution would have scaled-up to other parts of Nigeria and will serving the following annually:

1.  Technology Skills Program     -        5,000

2.  Product and Services Skills    -        10,500

3.  Entrepreneurship Development -      15,500

4.  Digital Literacy Program          -        30,000

5.  Sports and Arts Program        -        500

By the fifth year, we shall work to strengthen partnership with state and non-state actors so that they can use the lessons learnt to improve their approaches to similar solutions.  These include collaboration with State Education agencies to ensure integration of Digital Literacy in the Basic Education processes.  Government agencies and others working to improve skills would also be supported to apply the lessons of the solution.

In the next year, the goal will be on developing facilities and strengthening approaches to implementing the solution.  There will be extensive community awareness.  This will enable building confidence among the target and  wider population, agencies and institutions towards collaborative approach.

In the next five years, attention will be on scaling-up through collaboration to ensure that it serves millions of Nigerians.  To achieve this, there will be partnerships with diverse organizations to apply lessons and providing technical support in the implementation of similar solutions.  Such organizations include:

Nigerian Government Agencies such as National Directorate of Employment, SME Development Agency, Economic Reconstruction Fund and National Youth Service Corps that seek to provide similar solutions but not efficiently

Financial Institutions: Central Bank of Nigeria; NIRSAL Microfinance; Banks of Industry and Agriculture, Development Bank of Nigeria towards providing low-interest funds for SMEs.

Nigerian Educational Institutions (higher and Basic): Using their facilities to extend the solution to their immediate communities across 774 local governments in Nigeria.

Development Agencies – Liaise with Development Agencies, examples, World Bank, African Development Bank; DFID, UNESCO; USAID; GIZ towards to extend the impact of the solution.

Foundations and Corporations:  Collaborations with Corporations and their CSR Foundations towards enhancing the impact of the solution.  Such include the Dangote, TY Danjuma and BUA Foundationds.

Grant Organizations:  Continually seek the support of organizations towards providing grants to further extend the impact of the solution.

Technology:  In the next five years, Technology will be central towards expanding the impact of the solution. 

The major barrier to accomplishing our goals in the next year is access to funds to rehabilitate our facilities and install the necessary equipment to meet key solution goals.

The unfriendly environment towards small business and social enterprises such as ours in Nigeria makes it difficult to access capital.  The financial institutions that could have been a bridge towards this absolutely have no interest in supporting this type of innovations.  Further their interest rate for loans is in the range of 30% with no moratorium, making it unsuitable to seek funding from such sources.

As a result of the potentials and high demands for the solution, if it is able to move beyond the current pilot stage, it will excel in the next five years towards accomplishing its goals of impacting millions of Nigerians.

To address the challenge of finance, a number of strategies are being adopted:

Explore Funding from Government Low-Interest Interventions:  The organization is seeking funding from a new Microfinance Bank (NIRSAL Microfinance Bank) established by the Central Bank of Nigeria towards providing upto N10 million Naira ($25,000) long-term (7 years), low-interest (9%) credit facility.  Success in this will help to provide some of the basic requirements to fully implement the solution.

Applications to Grant Making Organizations:  Applications are being made to grant-making organizations with a view to accessing grants that will enable the solution to move beyond the pilot stage through the installation of key equipment and resources to enable efficient delivery of the solution.

Possible Partnerships:  We are exploring possible partnerships and collaboration including from Angel funds to support the implementation of the solutions.  This would help in scaling up the solution faster.

The Solution Team is part of the Savannah Institute of Technology, a specialized higher education institution with specific attention to developing skills and capacities in Technology and Entrepreneurship.  

At the moment 1 person work on the solution Team full-time. Four people work on the Team part-time .  There are also 4 Part-time Advisory Team Members.

Our Team has extensive background in the delivery of education, skills, entrepreneurship and technology programs across the world.  The Team Leader has nearly 4 decades of experience in the delivery of education programs in Nigeria, Europe, United States and the Middle East.  He understands the problems that the solutions seek to solve having worked closely with public and bureaucratic officials in the Nigerian education sector.  For over seven years, he was the Technical Adviser to the Ministers of Education in Nigeria.  He has also worked with the World Bank, DFID, UNESCO, USAID, UNICEF in the implementation of their education and social programs in Nigeria.  Further, he has worked closely with education agencies such as the Universal Basic Education Commission, the National Board for Technical Education, the National Universities Commission and Commissioners of Education in Nigeria.  He was part of the Research Team commissioned by the Northern Governors Forum/Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation on collection and analysis of information on challenges of education in Northern Nigeria.  He is actively involved in promoting Technical and Vocational Education.

Members of the Advisory Team of the solution have and continue to play roles in supporting the implementation education and skills programs.  They include a former Minister of Education, a former Permanent Secretary for Education and Women Affairs, the Managing Direction of an Educational Information Technology services organization and the Director responsible for the design and implementation of SDGs in Nigeria.

The Team therefore have extensive background and experience to successfully implement the solution.

We currently partner with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) towards training youths and adults in Entrepreneurship Development skills across Nigeria.  Our role is to seek out and identify youths and adults for participation in the Program.  Resource people from SMEDAN support the provision of the necessary skills.

This training enables participants to quality to apply for low-interest credit facilities to establish their business.

We also partner with Nigeria's National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in the training of youths in Information & Communications Technology Skills.  

THE CUSTOMERS AND BENEFICIARIES

The key customers and beneficiaries of the service are diverse segments of the underserved population in Nigeria, forming part of the 90 million people living in extreme poverty.  These include over 25 million youths, lacking employable skills and unemployed; Street children with no access to education; women and young girls that lack the opportunity to participate in economic activities; employees in the public and private sector that lack the skills for the 21st Century.

THE SERVICES

The services consist of diverse Skills and Entrepreneurship Development Programs in line with beneficiary needs:

-Technology Skills

Short- and long term skills development programs in specialist areas of Technology

-Product and Services Development

Short-term skills development programs in product and service development including: basic consumer goods; small-scale agriculture/marketing; food storage/processing; culinary arts; leather crafts; fashion design and production; hair and beauty; media technology.

-Entrepreneurship Development Programs

Entrepreneurship Skills Development and sourcing of funds for SMEs.

-Digital Literacy Programs

Literacy in Technology and its role in society

PROVISION OF SERVICES

Services are provided by professionals and experts through direct instruction and interaction in classroom, laboratory, workshop and industry settings at designated centers.  Provision planned to use Technology to enable virtual/online interactions.  At scale, the services will also be provided through third party partnerships.

WHY THE BENEFICIARIES NEED THE SERVICES

The beneficiaries need the services because it will provide them with the capacities to use their newly-acquired skills to take advantage of economic opportunities in diverse sectors of the economy.

To fund the services, diverse approaches will be used in ensuring financial sustainability initially and at scale:

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE PROMOTER

At the onset of the pilot the, the financing of the provision of the services will be through the contribution of the promoter of the service.

DEBT/INVESTMENT

Post-pilot, the organization will seek medium-term debt and investment to scale up the services.

GRANTS/DONATIONS

Donations and grants will be sought from organizations to support the post-pilot activities and scale-up of the services.

SUBSIDIZED CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BENEFICIARIES

Beneficiaries will make subsidized contributions towards the cost of their training.  As the provisions of the services progress, there will be assessment of the capacities of the beneficiaries so that some would pay the full cost. 

PROVISION OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

The organization will be involved in the provision of goods and services through which revenue will be generated to cover costs of operations and liabilities.  The Products and services will include:

-Production of goods using part of the 12 hectare facilities of the organization

-Agricultural processing and marketing involving the storage, processing and distribution of agricultural products

-Large-scale retail of consumer goods, allowing the opportunity to make goods available at lower price

-Transport and Logistics services

-Real Estate

-Culinary Services

-Hospitality

-Fashion Design and Production

-Cosmetics and Beauty

-Financial Services

-Consultancy Services

These product and services will serve the dual purpose of providing training ground for participants in the skills development programs offered through the Solution.

The reason for applying to Solve is to explore the opportunity of obtaining grant that will support the post-pilot implementation of our solution.  It will support the strengthening of our capacity to efficiently deliver the services.

We seek partnerships in the funding of the solution either through grant, debt, and/or equity.  This will enable us to strengthen the efficient deployment of the solution across Nigeria.

We also seek partnership with organizations that will support the deployment of Technology infrastructure that supports the efficient implementation and expansion of the solution.

We would like to partner with organizations with experience in supporting as well as implementing similar solutions.  We would welcome the expertise  of the MIT faculty initiatives and those of other organizations.  We would also welcome receiving excess equipment from organizations in the Us and other countries for our laboratories

Our solution targets out-of-school children that have no opportunity of benefiting from Basic Education by providing them with Digital Literacy.  In Nigeria, the conflict in different parts of the country has brought about the displacement of children and young people and has led to the interruption of their education.  

These children are located in Internally-Displaced Camps all over Nigeria.  We plan to use our solution to reach out to them so that they can benefit from Digital Literacy programs and thereby have the basic educational foundations for the future.

In Nigeria, women and girls suffer disproportionate access to education and other social services.  Of the nearly 20 million out-of-school children, considerable number are girls. These are found in streets hawking diverse wares to support their families.  Women are also burdened with the challenge of taking care of the needs of their families and spend hours trying to get involved in minor economic activities to raise money.

Our solution targets the education, skills and entrepreneurship development of girls and women.  For the girls, attention will be on supporting their participation in the development of skills in specialist areas of information technology.  There is also attention to supporting their capacity to development skills in the production of basic consumer household goods and services.  They are further supported to develop Entrepreneurship skills and raise funds that will enable them to establish small businesses through which to provide goods and services.

Rural women are supported by the solution to enhance their capacities in agricultural production and capacity to provide services.  They are also encouraged to work in co-operative groups so as to pool resources and skills in using their Entrepreneurship skills to setup small businesses.

Our solution keenly aims at strengthening the capacities of Nigerian women to move out of poverty so that they can be in better positions to support their children, ultimately ensuring that they participate in education.

Our solution centers on the provision of Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship.  

The Skills Development Programs in Technology and the Production of Goods and Services aims at developing the skills and competences of the target group so that they can have 21st employable skills that will enable them take advantages of job opportunities in different industries in a dynamic global economy.  Specialist areas of Information Technology such as Computer Programming, Networking, Information Security, Artificial Intelligence, web Development, Internet of Things, need skilled manpower for which our solution prepares individuals.  Further, the Skills programs targeting the production of goods and services will provide individuals with the necessary skills to take up job opportunities in expanding industries.  This include developing the capacities to work in production and services industries.

Our solution also seeks to promote Inclusive Entrepreneurship by providing skills in Entrepreneurship Development and supporting the raising of funds to startup and expand small businesses.  Through this, beneficiaries would use can start-up businesses in their areas of competence.  In places like Nigeria, a population of 200 million brings opportunities to produce goods and services to meet increasing demands.  Apart from small business activities in the production of goods, there are services relating to culinary, hospitality, fashion, leather crafts, hair and beauty and a number of others.

The integration of Technology through the Digital Literacy Program ensures that the solutions supports and entrepreneurship in the 21st Century for excellence.

Adult illiteracy increased in Nigeria from 21 million in 1991 to 41.3 million in 2015.  In seeking to enhance the productive capacities of adults in Nigeria, the solution will address the literacy challenges of this group of the underserved.  Extensive number of these are women who are very to economic and social development priorities.

Our solution will provide this group of women and men with Digital Literacy integrated with Entrepreneurship Development skills.  They will also have the opportunity of developing skills in basic product and services development that will serve their communities.  Using their Entrepreneurship capacities and also the capacity to raise funds to startup business, these group of men and women will transform into more economically active population guided by the solution.

To further enhance the needs of the adult illiterate in Nigeria, the solution will also collaborate with the National Commission for Mass Education and the National Commission for Nomadic Education.  These are the government agencies promoting adult literacy.  The solution will seek to support the more efficient implementation of their programs in adult literacy by applying some of the lessons from the solution.