AIESEC is an
international student run organization present in over 110 countries, with
Nigeria inclusive. AIESEC Nigeria at its annual National Conference set aside a
day for interaction between youths and cooperate organizations called Youth to
Business forum (Y2B).
On the 27th
April, 2012, Youth to Business (Y2B) forum saw the participation of over 200
young people from 17 universities in Nigeria and corporate organizations which
included Unilever, Opera and IndiAfrica.
The welcome and opening
address of the event was done by AIESEC Nigeria President Mr. Femi Adebayo,
where he talked about the essence of AIESEC and the role of youth in
collaborating to bring about grassroots change. The theme of the forum"
How can youth and cooperate organization collaborate to drive grassroots social
change" was one that received much interest during discussions and
interactive sessions.
Mr. Femi applauded the
partners and sponsors present and commended the outstanding youth presence for their
availability at the event held in Enugu.
The panel of speakers
present at the event include: Mr. John Paul Employer [Manager Unilever Nigeria],
Ms. Kelechi Okeahialam [LDM Nigeria/West Africa], Mrs. Udita Daz [Consultant
IndiAfrica], Mr Osibo Imhoitsike [Market Coordinator Sub Sahara Africa Opera],
Mr. Vitalis Ihedigbo SAN, Mr. Sunday Awane [Regional Sales Manager, Access Bank],
Prof. Ifeoma Okoye of Radiology college of Medicine University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, Mr. Obiora Nnameka [Executive Director Sonaterm Agency Ltd], and
Olatunbosun James Tolulope [CEO Pearl Aquatic and Director Skillap
Consulting].
Ms. Kelechi Okeahialam of
Unilever, stressed that her organization believes in developing young people
and that 80% of it recruitment is from the university. She believed that the
youth present should not just see the forum as a partnership but as a pathway
for creating positive change in Nigeria. The platinum sponsor of this year’s
forum IndiAfrica was represented by Mrs Udita Daz. She emphasized on the role
of youth and the power to bring about change which are driven by some
distinctive qualities of passion, collaboration, determination amongst others. She
stated that the overall aim of her presence was to hear young people speak and
prefer lasting solution to some of the problems faced by our society today.
Mr. Osibo Imhoitsike highlighted
the high energy posed by young people. He emphasized on how this energy can be
harnessed to bring about positive change. He also spoke about the role of
technology in driving innovation in our society.
Mr. Vitalis Ihedigbo
stated that, it is imperative for young people to equip themselves with all
necessary leadership skills to drive positive change in today’s society.
At the end of the
keynote speeches that were made by guest speakers, the first speaker
representing the youth, Mr. Tella Babajide talked about the power of the youth,
as the population is majorly comprised of youth which bestows a lot of
expectation on young people. He therefore challenged every young person present
to have an entrepreneur mindset to allow us think of solutions to societal
challenges. He concluded that those who “believe they can and can't are all
right”, Emphasizing that the zeal to drive change resides in the motivation of
the individual.
Another representative
of the youth present at the event emphasize the power of cooperate
organization. He gave examples of cooperation like Exxon Mobil whose GDP is
higher than that of 20 African countries combined. He concluded by saying now
is the time for cooperate organizations to drive young people to bring about
change especially in the grassroots.
At the forum, Mr. Vitalis
Ihedigbo presented a paper on "Youth Leadership and Entrepneurship" where
he implored young people to always think outside the box and develop themselves
from high impacting event such as youth 2 business forum.
The need for creativity
and innovation was emphasized by Miss. Shayo Tinuoye. She explained that the
driving force for the social change at grassroots level we are looking for can
only be visible through effective collaboration between cooperate organizations
and youth, and the youth 2 business forum is the starting point for such
collaboration.
The high point of the
event was the interactive session between the IndiAfrica panel and the youth
where the representative talked about “how we can harness the demographic
advantage to pay rich dividend”. Mrs Udita Daz informed the audience about
ideas that have been put in place to see how demographic advantage can be of
great importance in our society. She shared the success from a project called
"the idea works" and pointed a direction towards their focus area
which has to do with Africa and India. The similarities between Africa and
India’s realities were what brought about the project IndiAfrica "a shared
future" came into existence.
Some of the major
challenges addressed at the forum was how to transfer idea between India and
Nigeria and why small scale industry in Nigeria are not growing? Some of the
resolutions include: utilization of the Internet, social media, use of NGO and
civil society network amongst others.
The forum which came to
an end with an interactive session by Unilver and Opera respectively discussing
the role of government, educational institution and cooperate bodies in
nurturing talent and economic competitiveness.
Also successful AIESECers
that partook in the IndiAfrica essay competition were announced as IndiAfrica
Ambassadors’ in Nigeria.
