Gbenga Adenuga, Chief Executive Officer of CSBGAfrica, has concluded arrangement to award N250, 000 grants to each of 15 young Nigerians who will come out tops in business ideas pitch competition organised by his firm holding in Lagos tomorrow.
The booster grant will allow the winners to kick start their ideas and grow their businesses.
He told BusinessDay in Lagos, that there were 6,000 applications for the grant but CSBGAfrica will reduce the number to manageable level out of which 15 entrepreneurs/ideas will emerge as winners.
On the source of the grant, he said “The fund for the grant is from me, friends, family and associates and it is a commitment that I have made to assist people. My dream is to become a philanthropist in Africa. If i make a billion naira, what do I need it for, I will obviously give 90% of it out to the needy.
“I am speaking to millionaires and billionaires in Nigeria at this time that they need to do something for small businesses who are struggling and who need little fund to get going”, he said.
According to him, tomorrow’s event, promises to be engaging as it will include motivational talks with participants in various fields. The programme, entitled “Rethink, Realise and Redirect,” is scheduled at MUSON Centre in Lagos with facilitators drawn from all walks of life.
Adenuga, said the programme would enable participants learn towards achieving sustainable growth in business.
He said the journey as an entrepreneur is full of hits and misses. “Imagine a gathering that will offer you an insight into how ordinary people like you, navigated the tough ride and today stands as proof that entrepreneurship is worth it”.
He said CSBG offers the platform for aspiring young, upcoming, and successful entrepreneurs in and around Nigeria to come together and share ideas on how to make things happen, learn from more established actors on how to avoid certain pitfalls, and also deal with growing pains as entrepreneurs.
He said at the end of tomorrow’s event. “We will also give the participants certificate of completion and the purpose is that they will likely come in contact with us or our partners in future and that will drive them to some opportunities”.
He said when the company started in 2019, “ we realised that there were a lot of problems facing businesses in Nigeria that formal education cannot solve. So we decided to come up with this concept to motivate entrepreneurs and drive them towards success and accomplishments.
“The end part of the programme was an exhibition. The concept of the exhibition was to bring businesses and let them connect with high profile people in the society to open them up and it was successful.We had testimonies of people calling us weeks after the exhibition that they recorded increase in their patronage”.
He however said that the company later felt that it cannot be just talk, “we also need to assist businesses in terms of funding. With our scarce resources we still look at small businesses that with little injection of little funds can take them somewhere”.
