Student innovators
Nigeria’s student innovators now have a golden opportunity not only to showcase their talents but also make them available for national development, with the creation of the Student Venture Capital
- Beneficiaries of govt’s N50m grant must utilise the opportunity judiciously in their interest and that of the nation
Nigeria’s student innovators now have a golden opportunity not only to showcase their talents but also make them available for national development, with the creation of the Student Venture Capital Grant (S-VCG) by the Federal Government.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, unveiled the S-VCG scheme on March 29, at the UNDP Innovation Hub, Ikoyi, Lagos State. The aim, according to the minister, is to position Nigerian youths as the next wave of global innovators that cannot be ignored.
S-VCG, administered through the Federal Ministry of Education is designed to identify, nurture and fund student-led startups with the potential to solve real national challenges, from agriculture and healthcare to logistic and fintech.
The Federal Government has granted N50 million each to the 45 students selected from 65 finalists, among the over 30,000 who applied from about 400 public and private tertiary institutions in the country.
“Today is not just another programme event. Today, we are activating a new future and a new vision for Nigerian students. Great ideas should not die in classrooms but be nurtured into impactful solutions for our society,” Alausa said at the occasion.
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As the minister rightly observed, this is a paradigm shift in the country’s educational system because it empowers innovation-driven Nigerian students nationwide.
We are particularly happy because of the promise of the programme making our beneficiaries “job creators rather than job seekers,” as they would move from ideation to commercialisation of their innovations.
For long, graduates in the country have remained job seekers apparently because of faulty academic curricular, underfunding, or the belief over the decades that that is the way it should be. Even graduates of the higher institutions that are supposed to be technologically based are proficient more in theory than practicals. Agriculture-oriented higher institution graduates do most of their practicals in lecture theatres, and so forth.
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Many of the graduates who still manage to excel in spite of the limitations end up dying with whatever ideas they have but which they cannot put to use due to lack of opportunities or funds.
With (S-VCG), some of those students now have the opportunity of government funding to develop their potentials.
In the developed countries, there are companies whose main job is to develop ideas. We need such venture capitalists in Nigeria. But there is no harm in the government filling the vacuum created by the absence of such industry.
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We need to caution, however, that the government should resist the temptation of handing excessive direct cash to the beneficiaries. We know what happened in the past when government simply threw money at problems because they thought that would solve the problems.
Rather, the government should establish a structure around which the programme would revolve, from tutelage to maturity.
Innovations need a lot of inputs to make them viable and sustainable. Constant monitoring is key to the success of a project like this.
It is stating the obvious to say that Nigeria has talents to drive its development. Many of them left the country for abroad due to lack of a conducive atmosphere and they are doing great there.
With an initiative like S-VCG, we can, hopefully, be able to retain some of them at home to help accelerate national development.
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As Ms Elsie Attafuah, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), noted at the ceremony, for the beneficiaries, “What lies ahead is not the conclusion of the journey but the beginning of a far more demanding phase.
“One that requires refining your ideas, engaging with the market, responding to feedback, and continuously adapting to scale impact.”
We urge them to heed Attafuah’s admonition of their “responsibility to build solutions that matter, to create value where it is most needed, and to contribute significantly to the transformation of this great nation.”
We appreciate the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Google, and the Bank of Industry, for supporting this laudable programme.
However, it is pertinent to warn that the problem with the country is not lack of ideas but implementation. We therefore urge the managers of the programme to bear this in mind.
