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Why our students will thrive after graduation, by UNILAG VC

By Maria Diamond
10 January 2019   |   3:18 am
Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has stated that the institution is unlocking undergraduates potentials through innovative ideas and concepts. He said this during the second level investment opportunity pitching of the 24 teams that came up with new designs and prototypes in the recently concluded ‘Impact Week’, a design-thinking workshop…

UNILAG

Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has stated that the institution is unlocking undergraduates potentials through innovative ideas and concepts.

He said this during the second level investment opportunity pitching of the 24 teams that came up with new designs and prototypes in the recently concluded ‘Impact Week’, a design-thinking workshop that birthed about 24 innovative ideas that would cause the students to succeed after graduation.

The event, which took place at the institution’s Entrepreneurship and Skill Development Centre (ESDC), was opened to investors and financial organisations to co-create the start-ups for these ideas.

According to Ogundipe, “We are unlocking potentials with all these concepts. I am excited about what our students are doing.  Investors are here to assess the presentation for investment. The whole idea is for our students to have their own business immediately after graduation,” he said.
  
The Acting Director of ESDC, Dr. Sunday Adebisi noted that the parameters for investment are business designs that are scalable, viable, visible, productive, and profitable.

“The amazing part is that all our students designs are businesses that will begin to spin money as remittal spins money. These are fantastic ideas and still at the incubation stage, so ESDC is bringing all of them together and we’re going to incubate them, we’d support them with all the technicalities needed for them to scale before they leave the university,” he said.
   
Adebisi added that the whole idea is to ensure that anyone that finishes from UNILAG becomes a job creator not a job seeker. “We want to be seen and known as a university that produces job creators not jobseeker. 

We have 156 students developing the 24 products, these students will go out there with valid business that sells, and can be invested into.

“This in turn will multiply because these people will train others and the increment in productivity will have a direct positive impact on the GDP of the nation. It would reduce unemployment, frustration and menace in the society.

What the institution is doing is to put the brain of the students into perfect functionality and get them to use their brain to create businesses and ideas. So it is going to impact a positive entrepreneurship effect on Nigeria economy,” he said.

Deputy Vice Chancellor, Development Services, Prof. Folashade Ogunshola, with a portfolio of Entrepreneurship Internalisation, Strategic Partnerships and Advancement, said the institution has been in the business of development, innovation and entrepreneurship in the last couple years, but the work they have been doing is finally beginning to yield positive results.

“One of the most important thing for us is that our students are amazingly creative and hard working. We have provided the environment and training for them to express themselves, we then challenged them and they rose to the challenge. Our students have come up with a lot of innovations both in agriculture and others that would move the country forward” she said.
  
The 24-teams involved in the designs and prototypes were rated and investors took investment decision on the businesses based on the set parameters while the teams were advised on how to carry their prototypes forward.

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