The Study UK Alumni has awarded £16,000 to four young Nigerian entrepreneurs who were alumni of various schools in the United Kingdom. The entrepreneurs were awarded each £4,000 to help support them in scaling their businesses and addressing societal issues.
These awards, issued in four categories, were to recognise the influence of entrepreneurs in the Business and Innovation, Culture and Creativity, Science and Sustainability, and Social Action categories at a formal event held recently in Lagos.
Chikodi Onyemerela, director of programs at the British Council said the Study UK Alumni award is to celebrate young entrepreneurs who have achieved significant milestones in their lives, but more so, for them to take the lessons, the learning, knowledge, and skills they’ve acquired in the United Kingdom to solve local problems in their home countries.
“Giving the prize money this year is just to add impetus,” Onyemerela said. “What we intend to do with the money we give to these young people is to support the work they are already doing and you can see how passionate they are.”
“What this money will do is to increase the scope and scale of what they’re doing in the future.”
According to him, the British Council is using the award to motivate the alumni to come back to their home countries to lend support to the myriads of challenges.
“We want you to go and study and come back and deploy what you’ve learned from the UK to support our country going forward,” he said.
Speaking on how the winners, were selected Edemekong Uyoh, regional head of marketing for cultural engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa, British Council, said: “The criteria for us were the quality of the applications, the scope of impact of the work they have done within their immediate communities and also attending the school in the UK, either for first degree or Masters program.”
“We had about 100 applicants from Nigeria, and globally we had over 1,000 and that just shows you the impact and how much people value the award and want to be a part of the study UK Awards,” she added.
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Out of the 100 applicants from Nigeria and over 1,000 globally, 12 entrepreneurs were shortlisted, and four; Abubakar Sadiq Falalu, an industrialist and a rice farmer; Isha Matankari, performing artist and founder, Creative Culture; Muktar Gadanya, a public health physician, Bayero University/Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital; and Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi, founder, Stand To End Rape (STER); won the cash prize of £4,000 each.
Isha Matankari, an Aston University alumnus and creator of Creative Culture, who received the culture and creativity award during his speech, said, “I feel honoured to be recognised by the British Council, it’s a great validation for the work I’ve done over the last few years.”
Similarly, Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi, who graduated from Swansea University, who won the Social Action Award said “I feel elated representing my university but also my organisation and being able to show that young people can create change.”
While Muktar Gadanya, an alumnus of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said “I was the lead consultant for the development of current Nigeria’s national family planning blueprint which was the anchor document for implementing family planning in Nigeria and that document has led to increasing in the uptake of contraception in Nigeria and led to the decrees in maternal and child mortality in Nigeria.”
