An innovation, entrepreneurship ecosystem for youth development

The organisational and management activities performed by an investor upon establishing a business enterprise are carried out without losing sight of a constant desire to maintain a lead, through the continuous innovative ideas of the business initiator. He does this by always making sure that he keeps satisfying consumers and direct customers with improved and trendy products or services with freshly added values, in a highly competitive open market system (for the purpose of remaining a going concern). Innovative ideas go along with talent and expertise. It is proven to keep manifesting, once there are competitive threats (over the market share under his control) from other contemporaries within the same market segment. Another way creative ideas (the potential inherent in an entrepreneur with deep insight) could spark off as a “strategy” is to counter an obvious and imminent “challenge”, which may have been observed (through marketing, seminars, workshop, training or sales survey conducted) that could affect future sales targets.

An industrial cluster is where a product value-chain is established, for both major finished products and all the supporting/ancillary services go on concurrently. An entrepreneurship ecosystem for the youths could perfectly fit in there successfully. The reason is that the entire economic activities going on at such a designated location have a common end product, and there is bound to have in existence a very thriving, highly competitive advantage quest among all the players in there. Such a market environment would possibly create room for innovative competitiveness that would most likely create opportunities for multiple discoveries amongst the youth entrepreneurs operating within it. The fact that the ecosystem innovation occurs, indicates that there is also in existence, a loosely interconnected network among these youth entrepreneurs; and others that coexist with various technological capabilities, from their individual and several talents being shared around among colleagues with skills or knowledge, by working together/cooperatively in developing a new and very interesting products and services. In such an environment, policy, finance, culture, support, human capital and markets are major connections entrepreneurship mingle along for the purpose of consummating attractive, fruitful effects and favourable impacts, from their pursuits to actualizing their respective business aims.

A classical analogy is to study the activities of youths in a marketplace, where information, communication technology (ICT) holds sway. Such locations and clusters are strategically positioned in almost all the major cities and commercial nerve centres in Nigeria, and are usually called a “computer village”. Today’s youngsters in various parts of the country (both the educated and those who didn’t even make it beyond the junior classes in secondary schools) mill around in their numbers at such markets, practising and rendering one technical service or another (with such high proficiency being technically exhibited). The know-how is limitless, covering repairs of hardware and software computations, majorly on phones, computers, very sensitive electronic gadgets and their various accessories. In fact, the expertise they exhibit and the technical terminologies with their matching jargons used with ease make one baffle at how and when they passed through such training, to be able to professionally understand every bit of the technicality needed to be proficient to practise as technicians in such ICT fields. One is always in bewilderment, watching these youths render their technical services with the mastery they always exhibit. And one funny aspect is that their bills and service charges are always very minimal, leaving one to wonder how and when such meagre income will trickle into something very meaningful for future investments in life. The economic secret one finds out is that they depend on volumes by their marginal service charges; which on its own portrays the power of diligence in entrepreneurship.

Empowerment and human capacity development for the youths who have resolved to slug it out in life on their own, without waiting for paid employment in the labour market, is one area the government needs to encourage and must critically and carefully focus on. This is for the purpose of developing the economy, through enhanced productivity (for real GDP growth), anchored on these discrete self employed youngsters that are presently growing in their numbers in various economic sectors within the larger economic picture of the country. This is not the work of just a single Federal Ministry but a corporately established youths empowerment programme by the relevant ministries; ranging from Finance to Youths & Culture; Trade, Commerce & Industries; Science & Technology; Economic Planning & National Development; Agricultural Resources; Information Technology, among others.

Commercial banks, micro-finance banks and the Development Banks (with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s endorsement) are expected to have a special package that is backed by law, to sincerely empower our youths in various trades and vocations. This contribution is aware of the already existing frameworks being implemented in various economic sectors through the channels of some federal governmental agencies and parastatals but, a “punchy bite” needs to be added towards making national economic growth and development a reality this time around, than by mere rhetoric. This material is subject to being developed into a full and well articulated document by the relevant experts (if found worthy as a working document, and meaningfully makes sense).

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