By Adesina Wahab

BIC, a world leader in stationery, lighters, and shavers, has announced the conclusion of its latest “Mentor Me Programme”, a business skills-building workshop for Nigerian students created in partnership with Enactus, the world’s largest experiential education platform.

Now in its fourth year, Mentor Me exposes participants to the inner workings of BIC’s operations while teaching insightful lessons on how to achieve personal and professional success.

As part of BIC’s commitment to improving learning conditions for 250 million students by the year 2025, the 2022 ‘Mentor Me’ programme included 15 Enactus Nigeria students from the University of Lagos; Bayero University in Kano; and the University of Port Harcourt.

The students shadowed BIC team members, as they took part in tasks including product innovation, negotiation, branding, and sales and marketing campaign planning. Students also interacted with BIC distributors and wholesalers, as well as sell BIC products. The programme concluded with the Enactus Nigeria students sharing their learning and recommending ways to further enhance the pricing and profitability of BIC products. 

Commenting on the programmme, Guillaume Groues, General Manager BIC Nigeria, said: “At BIC, we continuously work to enhance learning conditions for students. Mentor Me is a beneficial practical exercise which complements the Enactus National and World Cup events, while giving students a taste of the real business world. These programmes allow students to think outside the box and find creative solutions to societal challenges facing their communities.”

Michael Ajayi, Country Director Enactus Nigeria, said: “If we must grow our economy and rid the nation of the social crisis we are currently faced with, then we must make deliberate investments in developing the entrepreneurial mindset of our youths and mentor them to become successful entrepreneurial leaders and social innovators.

*It is by making such deliberate and altruistic efforts that we encourage the youth to make meaningful contributions to the process of resolving the socio-economic challenges faced in our society. Working with organizations, such as BIC, on programs to mentor, grow, and develop skillsets of the future generation, through practical work and real-life implementation is essential. We are proud of the generations of Enactus students that we’ve worked with to date and the innovative start-up social enterprises they’ve put forward as projects and implemented and are confident that such initiatives will guide today’s students to become the leaders of tomorrow.”

The Enactus Nigeria National Competition 2022 has kicked-off in the country with the opening and semi-final rounds completed. This provided the opportunity for the competing Enactus Nigeria teams to present their impactful and revenue-generating community projects to a panel of judges, including those from BIC and other Enactus Nigeria partners. A total of 16 out of 35 Enactus teams in Nigeria qualified for the opening round. The four finalist teams will take part in the final round of judging on the 30th of August in Lagos, Nigeria. The winning national team will then represent Nigeria in the Enactus World Cup scheduled to take place in Puerto Rico in October.