What links these seven young Nigerians together is zeal: The zeal to be different, self-sufficient, financially independent and creative. Along the line, they have carved a niche for themselves in their various fields and without knowing it, impacted significantly towards the growth and development of this nation, Chima Akwaja writes.
These young men and ladies and numerous others not listed here are staking their claims that this country can be achieve the dreams of the founding fathers of Nigeria. Within a few months and years after their educational voyage, they have launched their net into the deep and caught fishes.
Not all of them had it rosy at the beginning. Some had to battle hunger. In fact, the hunger to be self-reliant, without depending on their parents had set them apart from the crowd. These young and dynamic Nigerians are pathfinders in the new Nigeria that the present administration is working to lay the foundation.
From various fields, cutting across law, information technology (IT), arts, tourism, business, etc, they have succeeded where others fear to thread. Their story below is very compelling and shows that where there is a will, there is a way. It signals that there is hope for the future generations in Nigeria. All that is needed is to plug into that hope, strive harder and the dream will be a reality.
Ideas rule the world. In Nigeria, there are so many challenges that need to be confronted. All that is needed is discerning youths to identify the problem, come up with a solution and pronto, he/she will become sought after and will eventually be on top of the world. The story of these seven young entrepreneurs below should inspire hope and courage in the teeming unemployed in the country.
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Co-Founder, Andela
Iyinoluwa, a serial entrepreneur with years of experience running social ventures in education technology and publishing, he is a Co-founder and Director of Recruitment at Andela, a technology company with offices in Yaba, Lagos and New York. Andela selects the top one per cent of technology talent from Africa.
With funders who include founders of Facebook, eBay, and AOL, Andela, a talent accelerator, trains world-class developers and matches them with employers around the world. In 2014, Iyinoluwa co-founded Fora, which enables African universities to scale quickly using online course content developed by professors at leading global institutions.
Iyinoluwa last month was listed by Forbes among the Most Promising Young African Entrepreneurs. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Legal Studies from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He helped found and run Bookneto Inc, a social e-learning platform for university professors to teach online courses. Bookneto Inc. was acquired in 2013.
Aisha Augie-Kuta, CEO, MeerMaad Networks Ltd
Aisha Augie-Kuta (35yrs) is a a photographer, filmmaker and mixed media artist based in Abuja. Her work spans across photography, painting and documentary-style films. Aisha currently runs The Photo Cafe and is the founder of The Centre For Art and Creative Talent (CACT) in Abuja.
She is the CEO of Meermaad Networks. She studied Mass Communication at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria; MSc in Media and communication at the Pan African University, Lagos (Now Pan Atlantic University); Certificate in Digital Filmmaking from The New York Film academy and also a Certificate in curating contemporary art exhibitions from the Chelsea College of art and design, London, UK.
Aisha became interested in photography when her father gave her a camera at a young age. She is an Associate of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI); Vice-President, Women in Film and television in Nigeria (Wiftin) the West African chapter of the US based network; and she co-founded The Photowagon, a Nigerian photography collective, in 2009.
Mark Essien, Founder, Hotels.ng
Essien, 31, is the founder of Hotels.ng, Nigeria's largest hotel booking website. The online portal allows users from all over the world to book rooms from a selection of over 8000 hotels. It has recently secured an investment of $1.2m from international investors EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund, a seed-stage technology fund, and Omidyar Network, the investment vehicle of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Mark, a hardware/software developer, studied Comp. Eng/Robotics in Germany. After his studies, he returned to Nigeria and founded Hotels.ng, the first startup to directly address the African hotel booking market. His message to Nigerian aspiring business leaders and entrepreneurs is that they should explore as "The African business ecosystem is brimming with opportunities and you just need to find what works. However, not every market is a good one, so you need to be keen enough to spot the difference."
Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, Founder, Yudala
Prince Ekeh, 23 year old founder and vice president of the composite retail platform, Yudala has taken the e-commerce space by story since August 2015 launch of its online store. Yudala employs over 400 Nigerians on full time basis. It plans to haveYudala store in every local government council by 2019, taking an estimated 10,000 Nigerians out of the labour market.
His company wrote its name and that of Nigeria in the history books on Thursday November 26th 2015 by successfully undertaking the world's first e-commerce drone delivery to flag off its inaugural Black Friday sales. Apart from the innovative strategies, his Yudala Online is ushering in a revolution in customer experience and service. Google at the end of last year rated Yudala second best Air Peace among the top trending Nigerian brands in 2015.
An Economics graduate of the University of Lancaster, Prince also holds a certificate in International Business and Economics from Harvard. An alumnus of the prestigious Lagos Business School (LBS), Prince holds a firm belief that the youth hold the key to unlocking the full potential of the Nigerian economy and the only industry that will provide them with this opportunity is the ICT.
Linda Ikeji, Blogger
Linda Ikeji, (35yrs) blogger, writer, entrepreneur and former model. She studied Mass Communications at University of Lagos but struggled to make it as a practising journalist and run way model. She went into full blogging in 2007. Her blog, Lindaikeji.blog.com has become one of the most visited sites in Africa. In 2008 and 2009 she was begging her readers to place adverts for free on her site.
Today, she is worth multimillionaire with monthly revenues in the range of $35,000-$50,000. In August 2012, Forbes Africa described her as a success and case study of blogging. Linda began her business as a hobby; however, four years down the line, she started making money from blogging.
According to Ventures Africa, "The story of Linda Ikeji, Nigeria's most popular blogger, shows that you can create value, and therefore a business and influence, from whatever you're passionate about; and even when controversy abounds, there are many opportunities to do good."
Paul Orajiaka, Founder, Auldon Ltd
Paul Orajiaka, a 37 year-old Nigerian entrepreneur, is the founder of Auldon Limited, a manufacturer of African-themed toys which depict, promote and teach Africa's cultural heritage to children. He founded the company with less than $100; it now has annual revenues of more than $10 million.
Apart from Nigeria, Auldon's toys are now sought after in countries like South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and some parts of Europe. Last year, Auldon launched the Unity Girl Dolls, a set of multi-cultural dolls clad in the traditional attires of Nigeria's major ethnic groups.
Orajiaka is currently studying for a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) at Henley Business School of the University of Reading, UK, majoring in Entrepreneurship. He studied accounting at University of Lagos (UNILAG) and Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Lagos Business School, Pan-African University (PAN).
Seun Osewa, founder/CEO, Nairaland Forum
Seuon Osewa is the creator of Nairaland.com, Nigeria's largest online forum which he launched in March 2005. It currently has over 1.5 million registered members. Nairaland is ranked amongst the seven top most visited sites in Nigeria by Alexa.com.
Nairaland is credited to being the biggest African forum according to Forbes. Seun started Nairaland in 2005 for the purpose of income. He said he actually planned to be making N60,000 per month when he started but things came out too positive for him that he was getting much more than that. Today, he is a millionaire.
Seun created a "frontpage" for Nairaland forum to attract more visitors to the website and to make it easy for visitors to be informed. Years later Nairaland's success became really huge that the website became the most visited site in Nigeria and Africa.
Source: Top 7 Young Nigerian Entrepreneurs Making Waves
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