Unemployment: Youth urged to be innovative
>>> ISSUE
#41
YOUTHVILLE
Friday, August 28, 2015
...young at heart ...y
‘I started designers‘ network to link young artists’ - Ademola Badejo D21.5 Century founder
Nigerian grows SME in Seoul, links Korean technology with local market
Development: What Nigerians expect
From the
YOUTHVILLE
TEAM
Friday, August 28, 2015 Page 34
Hello readers,
@latifatopoola
@Sinach360
SUNDAY EBHOTA SULE BAMAS OPOOLA
@SimonEchewofun
@sleek_diva88
@ikabirsule
Another Friday is here again so thank God it’s Friday. We’re happy you kept a date with us for another exciting, educative and entertaining edition of Nigeria’s number 1 youth-friendly magazine YOUTHVILLE. Get doused with another dose of very interesting and inspiring stories. YOUTHVILLE caught up with Badejo Ademola a young Graphic Designer and President of D21.5 Century, a designers’ network with its meeting point in Abuja where he successfully convened the second annual conference last month. Read his interview on our REFLECTIONS page as speaks on the highs and lows in Nigeria’s creative world. Are you planning to attend any event or concert this weekend and you don’t know what type of necklace to wear? Then check out our fashion segment for more details. For our movie review this week, we have the video review of a song ‘Jamb question’ by young artiste Simi. Get the full details in our SHOWTIME page. It is usually the norm of incoming first ladies to start pet-projects in mind. So it is not out of place to expect less from the current first lady. It is against this backdrop that we decided to find out what Nigerians especially the youths expect from the incumbent first lady. The BACKPACK contains their responses and other beautiful and exciting stories that would make your weekend a delightful one. Don’t miss any of it. This week’s stories are educative, exciting and inspiring. No one does it better than we do. Remember: it’s DAILY TRUST YOUTHVILLE. Just tell us your story and we’ll do the rest. How? By sending your contributions to us via youthville@dailytrust.com. Be a part of our Facebook ‘community’: DAILY TRUST YOUTHVILLE and on twitter: @DT_YouthVille. Don’t forget to keep a date with us next week for fresher, educative and inspiring stories…..The team wishes you all a gracious W.E.E.K.E.N.D!!!!
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Facebook >>> RE: Passionate youth should support the less privilege Ismail Mohammed W. Golkos: Yes especially internally Displaced Persons because they need our
support and thanks to Nimah for your support and encouragement, more grease to your elbow you and your campaign terms for organized such projects.
TRENDING
Withdrawal of policemen from VIPs…
P
resident Muhammadu Buhari’s recently directed that police personnel attached to unauthorized persons and VIPs in the country, be withdrawn and deployed to confront the serious security challenges in the nation. This announcement created a buzz on social media as netizens did not shy away from expressing their point of view. Timothy Okpanachi commending the move wrote “That was a good move by Mr. president. The roles of police men in Nigeria is not to serve VIPs. They (VIPs) should get bodyguards if they need defence and allow the police to serve the nation.” “Yes I support the idea, in fact it’s a welcome
development and equal treatment. they are not the only person to be guarded. Let them go and hire private bodyguard next time since the police is not only meant for dignitaries. They are to serve both the poor and rich equally.” posted Usman Mahmud Zanna Umar Abdulrazaq wrote “It is absolutely right, judging from the number of personnel on ground as well as the rising toll of insecurity vis a vis the population growth. They shouldn’t be withdrawn from their primary responsibility.” While Gbolade Ogundele “They should be withdrawn while the overall security system in the country must be adequate. But few on special duties like judges should be exempted. God bless Nigeria.”
BY UKEOMA MODESTUS
REFLECTIONS
YOUTHVILLE
Friday, August 28, 2015 Page 35
‘How I started designers’ network to link young artists’ Badejo Ademola is a young Graphic Designer and d President of D21.5 Century, a ja. Ademola started the D21.5 in 2014 designers’ network with its meeting point in Abuja. esigners association in the country. with a vision to grow into an organised graphic designers ference in Abuja last month. In a He successfully convened the second annual conference ighs and lows in Nigeria’s creative chat with YOUTHVILLE, Ademola speaks on the highs world. Text by Simon E. Sunday @SimonEchewofun, Eseohe Ebhota @sleek_diva88 & Victoria Bamas @sinach360 nach360
W
hat motivated you to picking a career in graphic design? My motivation to be a graphic designer started from childhood. I had always wanted to do creativity, paintings, drawing and things like that. However, the choice of being a graphic designer came up after my secondary school. I found out that there is a course called industrial design at the Federal University of Technology in Akure, Ondo State from a brother. He said, Ademola you are very creative and that is what we do in this course. Prior to that, I wanted to study civil engineering but I made a decision after I read about designing online. With my skills and talent in drawing, I felt it will suit me and that was how it started. We learnt one must specialise in a section of the graphic career. Did you specialize in any? My specialisation is graphics. Professionally, I work as a brand identity designer. That is my core specialization but because of the market as a graphic designer you could have clients desiring other things. So I do photo manipulation, I am very good at typography and I have a special skill set for logo design which is a separate call. At the recent D21.5 Century conference in Abuja, you said Nigerian designers are not organized. What do you mean by that? As I said, there is no single umbrella body for designers before the D21.5 Century came up. I met other designers and I found out that there was a loophole, a gulf in having to have an association. So I decided to create one even though it was a daunting task. I decided that if nobody does that, then somebody has to bell the cat and I decided that we can start from somewhere. How did you get sponsorship for your maiden conference? My first conference was sponsored by myself in 2014. It was sacrifice but I felt it was worth the cause. We had only 18 designers in attendance then. After the conference, I came up with the Creative Family Meeting which holds on monthly basis, on every last Sunday. We come
together to share ideas eas and challenge ourselves to get better. r. What are the top gains of participants from this? is? It is immense as I got my present job through this. It wass on social media platform that the notice came that somebody needed a designer. esigner. After that, many others were connected nnected to getting jobs and clients for their eir businesses. The group’s vice president nt was also able to get a professional job here in Abuja. We have also gotten referrals rrals who want to work with individual designers and we connect them with specialists ecialists in various creative genres amongg us. More so, people have been able to improve on their skills kills through our platform of sharing knowledge. nowledge. We have brought ideas, critique ue our works and many other things to o make us better. I can say boldly that this his community has built designers. What are you doing ng to enlist more membership? The vision is to expand xpand our social media reach like Facebook, ebook, Whatsapp and our website where ere people can get to see what we do and nd be part of the creative movement. For prospective members, an attendance dance of one of our meetings confers nfers automatic membership on them. em. Membership is free now and is opened to artists, designers and non artists who have passion for the creative ive thing. What is the network’s etwork’s current reach? We are not limited ed to Abuja, the nation’s capital alone. We have members coming to our annual nnual conference from Lagos, Akure, Kaduna, Imo and Kogi states. It is a nationwide thing even though it started ed in Abuja. Our members are mostlyy between the age of 18 to 30 for now w but we embrace everyone who is quitee interested in the creative world. What is the prospect pect of Nigerian designers in the nextt five years? The next five years will be tremendously awesome ome because with the advent of the internet and the social media, there iss a lot of access to information. As a student udent in Nigeria,
you can take 3D online courses, typography classes; there is access to online videos and tutorials. As at the last 10 years, that was not possible. People are going to be getting better with this, which I am so sure of. What’s your advice to youths who are yet to discover their talents? What I will say is that they should be their best. With what little skill you have and your digital camera or even your phone, start taking shots and post them online to let people know what you are doing. Take it serious. Find information about getting better and increase your skill level and the sky your is starting point and not your limit, I must say.
A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug. – Patricia Neal
BIZWIZ
YOUTHVILLE Friday, August 28, 2015
Page 36
Nigerian grows SME in Seoul, links Korean technology with local market Text by IBRAHIM KABIRU SULE, SEOUL @ikabirsule A Nigerian, Eedee Saro Goneh from Ogoniland in Rivers State has developed a business, K-Trader where he links up market opportunities in Nigeria to advanced technologies and expertise in South Korea. Upon graduating from the University of Port Harcourt, where he read Human Physiology, Goneh moved to Korea Republic through a Korean university scholarship and underwent another degree programme in Global Business in Hannam University. 27-year old Goneh, who is now moving unto to a Master’s degree in Technology Management told Daily Trust YOUTHVILLE in Seoul that he co-founded the Koraen-based enterprise to identify market opportunities and large development projects in Nigeria. Excerpts:
H
ow did you come to Korea, was it for business purpose? I was curious about the Korean education system and their emergence onto the global scene. I read some articles about Korea and I was really impressed with the country’s literacy levels and University participation rate, which is the highest in the world. Then, I saw that University scholarship opportunities were available in Korea so I applied for a place at the Linton School of Global Business in Hannam University. How long have you been in Korea and what is the experience like with regards to integration? I have been in Korea for some years now. Initially living in Korea was difficult because the food is very different, I missed my family and I had to try and learn the local language quickly. However, Korean people are curious about Nigeria so I was able to explain about our country and what we have to offer the world and this helped me to make friends and adapt to life in Korea. What motivated you to venture into the Korean business? While working and studying in Korea, I was impressed with the technology and business approaches used in Korea and I thought that their products and services could be exported and used in Nigeria to support our country’s accelerating commercial development. How did you establish your K-trader company in Korea? At the moment, the Korean government is offering a lot of incentives and support for those wishing to start enterprises for International Trade. I was already in the process of starting my own company when I caught sight of these programmes and then I was able to leverage them to accelerate the growth of our operations. What is your mission to improving Korea-Nigeria business deals? We felt that now is Nigeria’s time to lead the West Africa region towards greater prosperity and that we could contribute to that using the experience Korean companies have from working on big projects in the Middle East, South East Asia and the U.S. For example, most people are unaware that the tallest building in the world in Dubai, the iconic
Petronas Towers in Malaysia and other skyscrapers were all built by Korean companies. So, I believe that Korea has the ability to also deliver and participate in large-scale energy, construction and infrastructure projects here in Nigeria. Is your business enterprise a registered entity with Korean government? In order to ensure we did not hit any administrative barriers we made sure to register with all the Government bodies in Korea. So, we started off by getting an official tax registration number and Local Government operation approval. Then, we registered with The Korean Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). This will allow us to participate in International Trade Fairs and Government Trade Missions to increase our profile further. How long has the company been in existence? Our company has only been operating for a few years now so we are still in the early stages. We are growing fast so we hope we can continue on this path successfully. I co-founded the company with my former University Professor, Dr. Nigel Callinan, from Ireland. We were chosen by the Korean Government as a high potential enterprise and we were awarded office space in the International Finance Centre in Seoul’s business hub. What is the staff strength of the company and how many nationals? We have seven (7) people at the moment including Nigerians, Koreans, U.S and Irish nationals. Do you think Nigerians are utilizing the economic prospect of Korea? Yes, we have a network of successful
Eedee Saro Goneh Nigerians here in Korea now working for big multinational corporations like Samsung, Hyundai and LG. Some of them are working directly with us and others provide us with consulting and networking services. Were you involved in the execution of any project in Nigeria so far? Yes, for example we provided consulting services to the Enugu State Government when they were working on a solar plant project and also when they wanted to find a Korean steel company who were interested in a joint venture. How do you intend to link Nigerian
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We started off by getting an official tax registration number and Local Government operation approval. Then, we registered with The Korean Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). This will allow us to participate in International Trade Fairs and Government Trade Missions to increase our profile further.
market with Korea? We think that the key sector in Nigeria is infrastructure. When Nigeria has excellent Internet connections, efficient power production to meet growing demand and transport connections, our excellent businesses will be able to find new opportunities. Korea has the fastest Internet connections, the best mobile technology and world- class transport systems. We believe we can transfer this technology initially to Nigeria and then to the greater West African region. What is your advice to Nigerian youth about exploring foreign countries? I would advise Nigerian youth to study and learn about countries in East Asia and South America and to watch out for scholarship and study abroad opportunities. New regional powerhouses are emerging outside of Europe and North America and we Nigerians need to partner with them to find new markets for our businesses and use the excellent human capital we have at our disposal all over Nigeria. In our country, we have young people with the talent, vision, work ethic and determination to make great things happen.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. – Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi
BACKPACK
YOUTHVILLE Friday, August 28, 2015 Page 37
Development: What Nigerians expect from potential projects Text by ESEOHE EBHOTA @sleek_diva88 & BAMAS VICTORIA @sinach360
I
t is often the norm for the wives of past presidents to do one project or the other as contribution to improving the standards of living of the people. It is in this wisdom that Nigerians are watching for a likely trend with the present administration. The idea of initiating pet projects started with Late Maryam Babangida’s Better Life Programme for Rural Women (BLPFRW) early in 1990s. It was succeeded by Maryam Abacha’s Family Support Programme (FSP). Justice Fati Abubukar - wife of former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar also rolled out her Women Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA). Patience Jonathan also did the Women for Change and Development Initiative. With President Muhammadu Buhari as
President, Nigerians expect that his wife Aisha Buhari may take the step of her predecessors. YOUTHVILLE spoke to a cross section of young people on what they expected should Mrs. Buhari initiate a similar programme. Elijah Anika opined that a worthy project will be a programme on child marriage and child trafficking focusing on mother and girl-child education. “I strongly believe education will work wonders,” he said. Meanwhile, Ismail Zeze who commented on the Facebook post wants skills acquisition for the illiterate and jobs for the literate. He said, “Her Excellency should take initiative which help to provide job for the literate and also technicalKnow-how to illiterate.” Simon Baba Audu feels that there are a lot of
Youths on discussion elderly people who need care, therefore a “Senior Citizens Centre is a possible project as most developed countries have places like that. Its impact will be felt even in the rural areas,” Audu noted. Emmanuel Agada Abah added that she should create a training and
mentoring organization for young women’ political participation and link with the male folk for more participation of women in politics. It should be made an organization. While Merian Chibuzor Ama felt that the President’s wife should choose her
project to empowering women and children. He said, “Empowering the less privileged and poor women and children in our society would be nice one.” Ama believes that when one “educates a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.”
CAMPUSGIST >> BAYERO UNIVERSITY
Inducts 49 doctors Bayero University, Kano has inducted 49 new medical doctors at the Faculty of Clinical Science’s 14th Induction Ceremony. The former Vice Chancellor, Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed congratulated the graduands for passing through rigorous academic sojourn to graduate as medical doctors. The Registrar, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), Dr. Abdulmunini Ibrahim, administered the oath of allegiance to the Graduands and charged them to be guided by the ethics and principles of the Council. Read more via http://www.buk. edu.ng/sites/default/ files/bulletin/2015/ august_21st_ friday_2015_no_42.pdf
Monarch urge Youths to embrace entrepreneurship Text from SUNDAY MICHAEL OGWU, Lagos The Emir of Agaie, Alhaji Yusuf Nuhu has called on youth in the country to embrace entrepreneurship in a bid to make them self reliant. The Monarch made the call at a ceremony to mark this year’s international youth day in Bida Niger State. Alhaji Yusuf Nuhu who expressed concern over the high rate of
unemployment among youths in the country, said the trend poses a great danger to the society. The monarch used the forum to call on government at all levels to implement policies that will support the growth and empowerment of youths. In a lecture titled ‘Youths as agent of change’, the Rector, Federal Polytechnic, Bida, Doctor Abdul Abubakar Dzukogi, pointed out the youths are critical in the present administration bid to rebuild the nation.
Doctor Dzukogi however stressed the need for youths to shun thuggery and other social vices if they are to achieve greatness. The rector who enjoined higher institutions of learning to place more emphasis on skills and vocational education, want government and the private sector to provide graduates with employment opportunities to accommodate the teeming students being churned out yearly. The event coordinator, Bida Branch of
the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), Malam Umar Yahaya said Nigerian youths will remain committed to the growth and development of the country. He however appealed to federal, state and local governments to appoint youths in to positions of authority to give them a sense of belonging. Awards were presented to some Nigerians for the contributions to the growth of youths advocacy in the area and nation at large.
Success Corner! Unemployment: Youth urged to be innovative Text from SIKIRAT, Ilorin Nigerian Youths have been urged to key into entrepreneurship and be open minded to new ideas and innovations to curb perennial problem of unemployment. An entrepreneur and coordinator of Positively Affecting Lives (PALs), an advocacy agency, Mr. Yinka Odegbami made the call in Ilorin at a conference for youths on finance and
health said the programme was aimed at providing them the necessary skills to enable them develop themselves positively. According to him, entrepreneurship to a large extent, would drastically reduce the high rate of youth unemployment in the country, describing it as an acceptable method in the United States of America to provide jobs.
Mr. Adegbami, the Coordinator of (PALs) said it is high time for the youths to change their mind set towards looking for jobs that are not there, asking them to take windows of opportunities created by entrepreneurship to create their own economy and wealth. He therefore appealed to government at all levels to revitalize vocational centres and schools to expose the youths and
students to skills that would eventually turned them to jobs creators. He added that, people should desist from looking for government jobs and focus attention on how to create wealth through their skills by tapping untapped resources. The entrepreneur noted that the participants would be exposed to ways of using social media and affecting strategies through new media to create wealth.
Youth in solar technology innnovation
Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. – Ken Robinson