MRDC-YEN connects young entrepreneurs to market, capacity builders
As Nigeria faces its worst economic slump in 25 years, the Young Entrepreneur Network (YEN), a brainchild of Masterpiece Resource Development Centre (MRDC), has concluded plans to connect aspiring and budding entrepreneurs to the market and capacity builders.
The event tagged ‘Connect’ will attract economic managers and successful entrepreneurs who will share their experiences and thoughts to operators of small and medium businesses to enable them navigate through emerging challenges and become globally competitive.
The event, which will take place between September 27 and 28 at NECA Event Centre, Lagos, will attract Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s finance minister; Tunde Bakare, entrepreneur and founding pastor of Latter Rain Assembly; and Bukky George, founder &CEO of Healthplus Limited and CasaBella International.
Other successful entrepreneurs who will join in the experience-sharing include Ayeni Ekundayo, CEO of Businessplus; Ifeoma Williams, CEO of Fruition Consulting; Lanre Olusola, financial expert and Premier Life Coach; Abiola Popoola, chairman, MRDC, and Modupe Oyekunle, CEO of MRDC.
Young entrepreneurs will meet clients and share ideas that will enable them to make headway in key areas of business.
“What is peculiar about the YEN conference is the peculiarity of our economy, the seeming challenges facing young, aspiring and emerging entrepreneurs,” said Modupe Oyekunle, CEO of MRDC, at a press conference in Lagos.
“The key issue is to look at what we can do in this period of recession. So we have resolved to help entrepreneurs connect to God, self and the environment. We believe this is the best time for business environment because we have an opportunity to diversify our economy. There is nothing we can do without connecting to God, hence the God factor here,” she added.
According to her, what the organisers have resolved to do is to tell young entrepreneurs to go into agriculture, because there is a lot of funding available for it, adding that they will also be told why they need to go into manufacturing, with a firm belief that the federal government will provide the right infrastructure.
“Entrepreneurship should be the way to go. For developed countries, the focus is on SMEs, because they are shortcut to solving unemployment problem. How many people can corporations engage? This is the best time for SMEs to go into agric and the value chain they want to play,” she added.
Uchenna Nwosu, president of YEN, told Start-Up Digest that the group wants to help people discover their skills and know how best to channel them productively.
On the expectations at the conference, Nwosu said the organisers want young entrepreneurs to connect with people that have gone ahead of them.
“We have a data base of over 5000. There is a crop of entrepreneurs on the data base that have gone to places. They help others in certain areas. At the conference young entrepreneurs will be learning from industry leaders. We have the likes of Tunde Bakare, who is not just a pastor but also an entrepreneur and nation builder. How is he able to combine these things? Also, we are having the minister of finance who is actually excited to be at the meeting,” he said.
“There is a lot of propaganda in the air on policies. But it’s always nice to hear from the horse’s mouth tailor-made issues for that particular audience,” he further said, adding that experienced entrepreneurs will enable young people to understand secrets of their successes.
He said the Nigerian business environment brings out the best in entrepreneurs as it provides challenge which makes them better.
ODINAKA ANUDU