By Adekunle Adekoya

THE latest effort at engaging our teeming youths and generating jobs for them is the recently-launched Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria, better known now as YouWiN.

According to government officials, YouWiN is a collaboration of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Communication Technology (CT), and the Ministry of Youth Development.

Under the programme, an annual Business Plan Competition (BPC) for young entrepreneurs will hold and will be implemented in partnership with the private sector, which will be requested to provide funding support.

While the broad, general objective of the programme is to create jobs through entrepreneurship, specific objectives listed include the following:

Objectives

*Attract ideas and innovations from young entrepreneurial aspirants from Universities, Polytechnics, Technical colleges, and other post_Secondary institutions in Nigeria;

*Provide a one time Equity grant for 1,200 selected aspiring entrepreneurs to start or expand their business concepts and mitigate start up risks;

*Generate 80,000 to 110,000 new jobs for currently unemployed Nigerian youth over the three years during which the three cycles will be implemented;

*Provide business training for up to 6,000 aspiring youth entrepreneurs spread across all geo_political zones in Nigeria;

*Encourage expansion, specialization and spin_offs of existing businesses in Nigeria; and,

*Enable young entrepreneurs to access a wide business professional network and improve their visibility.

Personally, I am delighted at this initiative because if implemented as conceptualized, it has the capacity to move as many youths as possible off the streets and lift them from the morass of despair and helplessness in which they find themselves now.

Besides, the participation of the Ministry of Communications & Technology indicates that government is beginning to appreciate the fact that ICT as the great enabler can be used to solve much of our national problems.

Ideas aplenty

Our universities, polytechnics and research institutes are full of innovations and inventions that can help better life and living in this society if patronised. For example, only God knows how many patents are at FIIRO in Lagos, gathering dust on the shelves. Apart from that, a university don, a few years ago won the NLNG Prize for Science.

His invention was a material he called “lateralite”which he claimed if used in road construction will ensure that our roads don’t fail serially as they do now. Till tomorrow, no investor, or government has thought it necessary, even as a nuisance, to see what Dr Ajibola Meshida’s lateralite looks like, talk less see how it can be used to make roads that will last longer.

Implementation is key

Youth Development Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi allayed fears that the programme will not be politicised. I am sure of that too, but since he talked of cynicism regarding public programmes, I will like to remind him of NAPEP. That was otherwise a well-intentioned programme which has failed to alleviate poverty. Thus, the issue is implementation. I pray we all win with YouWiN.