Women who want to start their own businesses have the potential to boost the Nigerian economy by N19.7 billion, according to research released by Facebook. The study, conducted by Development Economics on behalf of Facebook*, also reveals that if the number of women who said they were ‘very likely’ to start a business did so (44%), this would create over 7 million new businesses within four years and over 8.9 million jobs within five years.

Compared to men, women are more likely to be interested in setting up businesses in Food & Drink (30%), Tourism & Leisure (13%), Lifestyle (10%) and Business Services (10%). The motivations for women wanting to set-up a business also varies, with financial gains amongst the highest (56%), followed by wanting to create job opportunities for family or other people (45%), those wanting to work around family commitments (40%) and those wanting to be their own boss (39%).

Lack of access to finance (36%) is the cited as the main barrier to women setting up independently. Facebook’s research also shows that among those likely to start a business, not sure of how to get started (32%), not feeling prepared or ready (30%) and lack of access to premises or equipment (26%), are the key reasons holding them back from taking this step. These impact women at every stage of their life – with women 55+ being less likely to start a business followed by those between 35-44.

“Facebook recognise how important women are in building stable economies, and the potential impact of this in Nigeria is encouraging to see” said Abi Williams, Facebook SMB Sales Manager EMEA. “We know that when women do better, economies do better, and with the right support, tools and trainings in place Nigerian women entrepreneurs can, and will be able

To compete on a global level.”

The study also revealed:

The use of online tools
In terms of the use of online tools to facilitate the sale of products or services to potential customers, the proportion of female managers in Nigeria reporting the use of such tools was 83 percent compared to 74 percent for males.
A slightly higher proportion of female business managers reported the use of online tools to enable customers to pay for products or services (39 percent for females compared to 37 percent for males).

Timing of business starts
Overall, of those women who are very interested in setting up a business, over 4.1 million appear to want to set up their business within 1 year. A further 2.5 million anticipate establishing their business within 2 or 3 years, and 378,000 say they expect it would be more than 4 years in the future.
END

*Calculations were made by Development Economics using data from the Future of Business survey commissioned by Facebook in South Africa, and surveys undertaken by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in Nigeria.

Television presenter and producer, Tosin Odunfa has joined the league of icons featured on the ‘Live Your Dream’ campaign inspired by Nigerian style power house, David Wej. The campaign showcases icons and celebrities across various sectors sharing their story of hope and resilience to inspire others towards chasing their dreams .

‘TV Tosin’, as he is popularly called, shared moments from his life and journey into the media space in a video released for the campaign. Wearing a David Wej dark grey slim fit suit, Odunfa spoke on his personal style and rise to prominence in a highly competitive media industry.

“Style is personal. I am inspired by the standard looks of international business men of repute as they go about their work dressed in either black, grey, or navy blue suit,” Odunfa said.

The campaign also features actor, Mawuli Gavor and advertising guru, Charles O’tudor.

Follow @Davidwej for more on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to see more inspiring videos.

The collections are available for immediate purchase at davidwej.com.

To celebrate International Youth Day, Access Bank hosted students of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) to an educational forum cum party. The event centered around this year’s globally recognized theme which is ‘Safe Spaces for Youth’.

The event which held at Access Bank UNILAG campus branch had in attendance over 1,000 students sharing ideas on the subject of safe spaces for youth across Nigeria.

It was a fun atmosphere as students participated in various activities such as dancing competition, quiz challenges, 360 degree camera shots, board games, and brain teasers.

There was also a panel discussion with 6 student influencers including a final year Biochemistry student, Ogunbiyi Omotolani, and Okafor Uchenna, a fresh graduate from UNILAG.

Others were Jacinta Amune, a 400 level Mathematics student cum blogger; Irianele Virtuous Osalumese, 300 level Mass Communications undergraduate; Otekaye Oluwatobi, Engineering Faculty Students President; and Seun Richard, Faculty of Arts Students President.

Life & Career Coach and Management Consultant, Bankole Williams delivered a keynote speech on creating safe spaces while expressing gratitude to Access Bank for organizing the event.

“The impact of this event cannot be quantified as it will go a long way to create awareness about safe spaces for youths in Nigeria,” Williams said.

Doyin Coker, Head of Youth Banking spoke on the International Youth Day theme saying, “Individuals can create safe spaces in their personal relationships with each other by inclusiveness and respect for everyone’s opinions. This will help to enhance peaceful co-existence and also attract the development we seek as individuals. We have a responsibility to create safe spaces for each other even as we search for our own safe spaces.”

Students and other participants at the event left with a deeper knowledge on the benefit of creating public, digital, and civic spaces to promote innovation and development.

Caption for photo 1: L-R

Head, Events & Sponsorships at Access Bank Plc,Ogechi Kasie-Nwachukwu, Head of Youth Banking, Access Bank PLC, Doyin Coker, Group Head, Communications & External Affairs at Access Bank Plc, Amaechi Okobi

The Future Awards Africa (TFAA), Nigeria’s foremost youth awards, has announced its call for nominations for the 2018 edition.

Building on the theme ‘Nigeria’s New Tribe’ launched in 2017, the 13th edition of the prestigious awards seeks to reward excellence by celebrating advocates, creators, and pioneers between the ages of 18 and 31 – young people who have made significant strides, defying the odds within the year under consideration.

By driving sustaining positive change while ignoring tribal, economic uncertainty or religious differences, the new tribe is driven by their talent, commitment to hard work, and achievement in impacting the economy, the society, and rewriting the narrative.

The awards have taken its mandate seriously, consistently presenting 105 positive role models annually to young Nigerians. For this edition, a 2-day activity will be focused on engaging youth in different industries from women conferences to technology and innovation. This will further continue to create a strong network for youth to support one another in the leadership space.

Persons eligible for nomination must have made considerable impact within Nigeria and/or globally within the last one year and must have easily accessible documentation of their achievements. The public is encouraged to nominate trailblazers from their communities in categories ranging from social activism, business, professional service to media, and entertainment.

To nominate, visit award.thefutureafrica.com. Follow @tfaafrica to keep up with the latest news on the awards. The official hashtags for 2018 are #TFAA2018 #NigeriasNewTribe.

The Future Awards Africa category for nominations

The Future Awards Africa Prize in Acting
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Advocacy
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Agriculture
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Creativity
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Business
The Future Awards Africa Prize in Photography
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Education (Endowed by University of Sussex)
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Fashion
The Future Awards Africa Prize for On Air Personality
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Professional service
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Public Service
The Future Awards Africa Prize for Sports
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Technology
The Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of the Year
The Future Awards Africa Prize for New Media
The Future Awards Africa Prize In Music
The Future Awards Africa Prize in Journalism
The Future Awards Africa Prize in Comedy

Access Bank in partnership with popular creative platform, CREAM on Saturday presented N1millon to Miss Wuraade Adejumobi, a budding entrepreneur. Her name was selected among a host of other entries at a raffle draw event which took place at Access Bank Head Office, Victoria Island, Lagos.

ACCESSCREAM – as the collaboration is widely known – supports talented young people across Nigeria to achieve their dreams and impact their community.

“I got to know about CREAM through Access Bank’s Instagram page, and this is my first try. Fortunately, I was selected – I still can’t believe! This N1million will take me to another level entirely,” Adejumobi said.

“I have had plans to own a supermarket and beauty store but all I needed was capital. I’ve always thought I am unlucky when it comes to raffle draws but I have been proved wrong. I thank Access Bank and CREAM for helping to make my dream come true.”

Over the course of 10 weeks, selected individuals will go home with N1million courtesy of Access Bank. To be a part of the weekly draw, Access Bank account holders can dial *901*463# on mobile and follow the instructions.

Brand strategist, Charles O’Tudor has joined the exclusive list of icons featured on the fashion and style inspired campaign tagged ‘Live Your Dream’.

The campaign which is the brainchild of Nigerian contemporary style connoisseur, David Wej highlights the sartorial excellence present in men’s fashion.

Charles, who describes his style as classic elegance, subtle, less-is-more, and detailed, shares real life nuggets from his brand battles, successes and style in a video released for the campaign.

‘Live Your Dream’ celebrates the passion, perseverance, and determination of Nigerians in pursuit of their dreams. It features icons and leaders across industries giving insight into their style and inspiration.

Follow @davidwej for more on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

The collections are available for immediate purchase at davidwej.com

Credits:
Muse: Charles O’Tudor
Suits: David Wej
Videography & Creative Direction: Tosin Odunfa
Location: L’olea Hotel, Maryland, Lagos

To demonstrate their commitment to improving the quality of lives of underprivileged children, leading brands across sectors; Knorr, LG Electronics and Shoprite partnered to donate household items to Love Home Orphanage in Magodo, Lagos via the ongoing reality TV Show, Knorr Taste Quest.

This followed an episode of the Show which saw contestants battling it out to win a reward for their favourite charity. Folashade Ijalana emerged the winner, therefore her favourite charity, Love Home Orphanage got rewarded with a year supply of Knorr seasoning cubes, LG refrigerator, food items from Shoprite, NeoChef microwave ovens, five-burner gas cookers amongst other appliances for a kitchen makeover.

Speaking during the visit to the orphanage, Brand Manager Knorr (Seasonings), Shadiat Shoyombo said, “At Knorr, our purpose is to enrich lives through flavour, hence our commitment to helping people, including children, get the most out of life. This is the reason we have been driving the battle against anaemia annually with our Knorr Force for Good initiative and why, today, we are donating useful day-to-day items to the children of Love Home Orphanage, with support from LG Electronics and Shoprite.”

Representatives of LG Electronics, Head of Corporate Marketing, Mr. Hari Elluru and Marketing Manager, Mr. Paul Mba along with Shoyombo joined Ijalana to interact with the children and staff of the orphanage as they present donations.

According to the representative of Love Home Orphanage, Mrs. Onafowokan, the well-being of children is of utmost importance to national development.

“Regularly, different individuals and corporate organizations come in to pay visits to the children during special occasions. Unilever, LG Electronics and Shoprite using the Knorr Taste Quest platform to emphasize the need to protect and provide all children with comfortable living conditions is a commendable effort. It is important that everyone knows that the well-being of children is essential for national progress,” she said.

She further encouraged the children to continually do their best in everything, irrespective of their backgrounds or situation.

Catch all the excitement and drama of the Knorr Taste Quest Show on the following stations:

Saturdays: NTA (6-7PM) and AIT (7-8PM)

Sundays: Africa Magic Family Channel 154 (7-8PM).

Today, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) announces the launch of a one-year intensive African Master’s in Machine Intelligence (AMMI) in partnership with Facebook and Google. The master’s will begin this September at the AIMS-Rwanda campus in Kigali.

“Machine Intelligence (MI) is revolutionizing critical aspects of our lives. It enhances medical diagnosis, improves industrial processes and enables scientific discoveries. Over the past decade, thanks to large public and private investments, MI has progressed rapidly in both basic research and the development of a vast array of applications. However, the talent pool currently advancing MI is modest and unrepresentative of the diversity of our world, leaving us less capable of facing global challenges. The challenges we choose to work on are strongly influenced by our backgrounds and our environment. Our goal with AMMI is to train a generation of young scientists who will bring a fresh perspective to machine intelligence research and contribute to advancing its development across Africa, for the benefit of its society” said Dr. Mouhamadou Moustapha Cissé, Founder and Director of the AMMI program and Professor of Machine Learning at AIMS.

AIMS, together with its partners, believes creating an effective, globally connected community of Machine Intelligence practitioners in Africa will reduce the technology gap, strengthen Africa’s economies and enable better governance.

Commenting on the partnership, Jerome Pesenti, VP of Artificial Intelligence said: “We’re proud to be partnering with AIMS and Google to launch the African Master’s in Machine Intelligence programme. At Facebook our goal is to drive positive social and economic impact across Africa, and this partnership is another step in driving innovation by supporting the continent’s already exciting tech ecosystem and talent pool. We’re excited to see how students will utilise advanced technologies to solve problems and build solutions for the future of Africa and the rest of the world. We look forward to seeing them contribute to the growing ecosystem of African machine intelligence scientists and bring a fresh perspective on the challenges tackled by the scientific community.”

Jeff Dean, Lead of AI at Google said “The field of machine intelligence is advancing rapidly, and it’s imperative that industry leaders including Google and Facebook, continue to partner with academic institutions like AIMS to develop the next generation of students who will build MI that benefits everyone. We look forward to working with AIMS to drive this effort through the AMMI program. Along with our recent announcement of a Google AI center, scheduled to open later this year in Ghana, this partnership with AIMS is another example of our long term investment and commitment to Africa.”

The AMMI program will provide brilliant young Africans with state-of-the-art training in machine learning and its applications. Every course on AMMI will be lectured by leading experts from prestigious African and international institutions, providing the AMMI students the best possible foundation.

“AIMS is thrilled to be launching AMMI in order to fast-track the entry of young African scientists into this very exciting and relevant discipline. We hope to replicate AMMI in other African countries, creating a pan-African network of centres for training and research of the highest international quality. AMMI will open the doors to Africa’s most talented youth, enabling them to contribute to industry, government and science on the continent. They will be the pioneers of a growing ecosystem of African machine intelligence specialists bringing leading edge skills to Africa’s economy, governance and society at large. AMMI is a first step towards AIMS’ longer term goal of preparing Africa for the coming quantum revolution in information science and technology,” said Professor Neil Turok, Founder and Chair of the AIMS.

Get ready for a new song from Omawumi, as the ‘In the Music’ crooner is set to offer another enthralling single titled ‘Malowa’, to be released today Friday, July 27, 2018.

The new song ‘Malowa’ is off Omawumi’s upcoming EP which comes off the heels of her widely popular single ‘Me Ke’ with Kizz Daniel.

The Afro pop song, featuring DJ Spinall and Slimcase, has an energetic rhythm with a smooth tune that allows you bop your head and shoulders at the same time, or perform your best shaku shaku.

Definitely one of the best songs for this summer, Omawumi displays profound versatility while making valid points about her street credibility. Her strong vocals also shine through the song with fast paced verses.

With evergreen songs such as ‘Bottom Belle’, ‘If you ask me’ among others, Omawumi definitely remains at the top of her game as one of Nigeria’s best.

Find link to download song below;

https://vydia.lnk.to/OmawumiMalowa

Menswear brand, David Wej makes a daring move unveiling its ‘Live your Dream’ campaign which features Ghanaian actor, producer, and presenter and all-time superman, Mawuli Gavor.

The new campaign inspires young, fashionable Nigerians to live according to set goals, take action, and help others live their best lives.

The campaign video features Gavor sharing his experience. As a child, he had always been particular about his personal style – ironing shoelaces and wearing a belt over his pajamas. From those finicky beginnings Gavor has grown to become one of the most stylish men to grace our television screens.

The ‘Live Your Dream’ campaign will feature icons and leaders across industries ranging from banking to government, fashion, media and many more.

Follow @davidwej for more on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Credits:
Muse: Mawuli Gavor
Outfit: David Wej
Videography & Creative Direction: Tosin Odunfa
Location: L’olea Hotel