… Also launches 2013 season of The Future
Awards & tfess.com jobs app
Thousands of young Nigerians gathered on
Saturday, January 26, 2012, to participate in the fourth edition of The Future
National Enterprise Conference (formerly ‘The Do SomethingPre-Awards
Conference). The event held at the Main Auditorium of the University of Lagos,
Yaba.
An inspiring mix of celebrities,
high-profile young professionals, and career veterans were present to interact
with the attentive audience, as they shared their knowledge, experiences and
gave advice on entering and surviving the workforce.
Targeted primarily at high school,
undergraduate, and graduate students; current National Youth Service Corp
(NYSC) members; as well as young adults currently in the job market, the
programme was titled, ‘Our Generation Needs to Get to Work’. It was a forum for
young people who are about to enter the job market to interact with
professionals from a wide variety of industries — IT, journalism, medicine,
entertainment, and more. The diversity of mentors spanned several key growth
sectors in Nigeria; from the chief executive of television production company
Inspire Africa, Mo Abudu, to an executive director with Nestlé, Iquo Ukoh.
Some speakers at the event were: Kola
Oyeniyin from Venia Hub; Otto Orondaam of SLUM2School Project; actresses
Stephanie Linus and Rita Domnic; cinematic director Kunle Afolayan; Ugochukwu
Nwosu of Microsoft; Ola Orekunrin of Flying Doctors; Jason Njoku of Iroko TV,
photographer Bayo Omoboriowo, Akintunde Oyebode who is Head of SME banking at
Stanbic IBTC, Idiare Itimomo of Etisalat, TV journalist Adaure Achumba, writer
and PR professional Toni Kan, advertising wiz Steve Babaeko, and designer
Bridget Awosika. Also speaking was investigative journalist Idris Akinbajo, who
was The Future Awards Young Person of the Year 2012.
The event was anchored by magazine editor
and fashion designer Mai Atafo, alongside radio presenter Cynthia Kamalu.
It was a lively and highly interactive
event, with participants on both sides of the stage and introduced the new
format of the event.
The speakers had plenty of insights to
offer to the students, and many of them passed on key life-lessons they had
obtained as they struggled to attain their dreams.
“At 25 I was talking business when my mates
were speaking English,” Kola Oyeneyin told the audience.
“If you want to be anything tomorrow, work
for someone for a year,” said Toni Kan.
Mo Abudu emphasised determination: “If you
want to succeed, a lot of passion and obsession is involved and each time
someone says no to you, someone else is about to say yes.”
“I am extremely proud of what we
accomplished here,” said Chude Jideonwo, executive director for The Future
Project. “This, is what The Future Project is all about; helping to shape the
future of this country by creating platforms that assist the youth in the
building of capacity, the opening up of opportunities and the driving of
enterprise. For Nigeria to be transformed, our youth need to get to work.”
The event also featured the launch of The
Future Enterprise Support Scheme (TFESS) website, www.tfess.com, a jobs and
opportunities app/online community designed and predicated on assisting young
Africans as they enter the workforce; providing information, skills
enhancement, a community platform on the internet. With video tutorials,
inspiring content, job-skill acquisition assistance and more, the website
anchors The Future Project’s mission to build enterprise.
The Future Awards, flagship programme of
The Future Project launched Season 8 at the event – with town halls meetings
now to be held across the country leading to the grand televised event in
August.
The event was presented by The Future
Project in conjunction with BlackBerry, Etisalat and the Start-Up Hub. Media
support came from Silverbird, Channels TV, Cool FM, TV Continental,
360Nobs.com, BellaNaija.com, NigeriaNewsDesk and the Linda Ikeji Blog. The
official media partner was Y!/YNaija.com.
More information is available on
www.thefuturenigeria.com. TFESS can be accessed on www.tfess.com and via
Twitter and Facebook on @TFESSAfrica.
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