Digital Media Literacy for SME's

Small businesses in Nigeria encounter a major problem of funding in their day-to-day economic activities. Many times, they usually cannot afford the extra cost of engaging a web/social media expert to help position their product, services and presence on the internet for better visibility and profitability. This solution is aimed at training and equipping small business owners' with the right amount of information on website development and social media management. Preference will be given to women in business because the Nigeria society has confined the female gender to a less important role in the business community.

Small business owners in Nigeria lack understanding of how the internet operates, hence, giving them low visibility on the Internet and thus affecting sales records poorly; also the exclusion of women to lesser roles in business operations is a major problem.

As a result of the above problem, we propose to do the following:

1. Create and setup active internet presence for our beneficiaries, that is, website creation and social media pages activation.
2. Expose the businesses to the global market (the Internet), thereby boosting sales records and revenues.
3. Educate and orientate small business owners on how best to utilize the internet to their business operation advantage.
4. Engage more women as beneficiaries.

Our solution serves the Nigerian youth (18 - 35 years) especially the female gender. Statistics reveal that the youth account for Over 40% of the total population in Nigeria, this means that they represent a very significant percentage of the population.

The selection process and capacity building will spread across the six (6) geopolitical zones in the country with emphasis on neglected areas. 
Currently, Nigeria ranks 131 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business globally (this is according to the latest World Bank annual ratings). For us, it means we will be able to impact positively on the lives of our beneficiaries by easing the challenges associated with doing business in Nigeria, so the enterprising Nigerian youth will not be frustrated out of business and in the long run, reducing youth unemployment – as a successful business is bound to grow and employ more people.

The problem deals with the Nigerian digital economy as it affects small businesses: internet penetration, enlightenment of how the internet works and the use of the internet to drive sales. 

According to DataReportal 2021, Nigeria’s population is 208.8 million, out of which 104.4 million are internet users, and only 33 million social media users.

The solution is tailor made for the Nigerian youth, who cannot afford internet presence.

By putting beneficiaries businesses on the internet and teaching them to leverage its usage; we would have achieved the goal of this challenge; which is to enable  participation in the digital economy.

We intend to launch this solution, should we qualify successfully for this challenge, and even if we don’t emerge as we earnestly expect, we hope to look for other means to carry on with this novel idea.

We look forward with the expected support to launch out someday and become a positive influence to our business community, by helping small businesses thrive.