Experts call for synergy between industry, schools to drive entrepreneurship

Experts in the country’s entrepreneurship ecosystem are advocating for increasing synergy between universities and industry to help drive entrepreneurship.

The experts who spoke at the just concluded ‘Digital Wealth Creation Summit’ added that the synergy is needed to help students develop specialised skills and knowledge needed in the future workplace while also developing their entrepreneurial skills.

Samson Olatunde, the convener said the digital wealth summit provides the platform for the business community to leverage real-life case studies to gain momentum for ideas and innovation.

“The whole idea of doing this is for all of us to see the need to empower more people, startups, and career professionals, especially from Africa,” Olatunde said.

“We realised that there are a lot of knowledge gaps and people need to understand how to apply information to different aspects of their lives; most especially mentoring.”

“But with just a click of the mouse, you can do that, so what we can do is put Africa’s one-stop digital knowledge bank platform together that does mentorship, master class, market place and everything you can think about learning.”

Speaking at the event, which was part of career week at the University of Lagos, Olatunde noted that the problem of job creation and deficit can only be solved when the challenges facing entrepreneurs are taken away.

“We have a huge number of young Africans doing stuff and suddenly they all want to leave the country, the reason why all these things are happening is that they are going through a series of challenges, particularly in the area of entrepreneurship.

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“You see, the problem of job creation, job deficit are numerous and I believe that when we democratise access to entrepreneurship, we empower more entrepreneurs to emerge on the continent, then you will be able to engender wealth creation, ” he stated.

Olatunde further encouraged Africans to embrace knowledge which is a major solution to solving many problems in various sections and that is one of the core mandates of Knowledge Digest Africa; Africa’s Stop Digital Knowledge Bank Platform.

Sunday Adebisi, a professor and director of the entrepreneurship and skill development centre at the University of Lagos, said the institution is deliberate about teaching the students how to create a decent job for themselves.

“We understand that our students must not just be trained in this place, but we must begin to get them to create jobs and we are very particular about this,” he said.

“What we are trying to do is simple. We understand that the number of the youth is growing economically and they must do jobs; none of them want to go and carry holes to the farm,” he added.

He noted that there is a need to create decent jobs, adding that the summit is focused on achieving that objective.

For the panelists, at the summit, effective collaboration between academics and industry remains critical to transform the quality of students produced for the digital age.

They agreed that it was high time stakeholders and the academic community worked together to provide the needed mentorship opportunity that would allow the transfer of knowledge very easily especially through rich content platforms like the ‘Timeless Conversation with Samson Olatunde’.

The dean of student affairs at the University of Lagos said the event would help bring their students to global standards.

“We should always ask ourselves what is the purpose of the university, the purpose is to facilitate industrialisation of an economy. How do we do that?” he asked.

“We do that by the provision of competent human resources, with competent managerial, technical and professional skills- that is the purpose of a university education.”

On his part, Paul Okunaiya, MD, Tobacap Partners, who was a guest at the conversation said a platform like this was needed across the nation’s academic environment.

“To be informed you will transform your mind and lack of information will lead to deformity and what we are bringing is practical experience and working information that can help this student.

“To transform their mind is the base of changing everything and to have technocrats coming here to give practical experiences about their failures will help them draw from this experience and be inspired.”