Fate Foundation trains 122,200 entrepreneurs

FATE Foundation, Nigeria’s leading non-profit organisation that is promoting business and entrepreneurial development in the country, has trained over 122,200 entrepreneurs with skills and provided support needed to start, grow and scale up their businesses.

According to the non-profit organisation, 65 percent of these entrepreneurs are still running their businesses with a minimum of two to three full time employees.

“Through entrepreneurship training, mentoring, consulting and advisory services specifically tailored to aspiring and emerging MSMEs in Nigeria, FATE has trained over 5,200 entrepreneurs in her full term programmes, 45,000 in her short courses and over 72,000 young Nigerians in her youth entrepreneurship training programmes,” said Adenike Adeyemi, executive director, FATE Foundation at a recent press briefing held in Lagos.

Also, the organisation will be holding its third annual dialogue series on entrepreneurship with the theme, ‘Scaling Entrepreneurship: How State-Led Efforts Can Unlock Youth Potential’ and a presentation of the full report on the Mapping of the Nigerian Entrepreneurship Ecosystem.

The dialogue series would be chaired by Nasir El Rufai, governor of Kaduna State with other eminent panel of speakers, which include Jumoke Oduwole, commissioner for wealth creation and employment, Lagos State; Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti, director, skills, education and enterprise, and the British Council, amongst others.

“While developing the research report last year, it was apparent to us that there was a need to focus on entrepreneurship growth and development at state or sub-national levels if we are to see the expected socio-economic impact on growth and development,” said Adeyemi.

“It was also clear that youth entrepreneurs had enormous potential to positively impact and scale the micro, small and medium enterprise sector in Nigeria. This thinking influenced the theme of discourse this year as well as the choice of speakers,” she added.

To date, FATE has hosted two successful policy dialogue programmes that discussed the findings of its research reports on the MSME space in Nigeria and the Nigerian Entrepreneurship Ecosystem.

The dialogue series is scheduled to hold on Thursday June 22, 2017 at Four Points by Sheraton, Lagos.

Josephine Okojie