Ugo Aliogo
The Nigerian Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) under the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development (FMYSD) has announced that it is partnering Nigeria’s Business Reality Television Show, the Next Titan to launch the 8th edition in its bid to transform lives with entrepreneurship skills, which can be beneficial to the socio-economic development of the nation.
The show which is Nigeria’s foremost Business Reality Television is a 10-week competition show that ignites the entrepreneurial spirit of budding Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and scales them to greatness with a market and with Nigeria’s population, is tagged: “The Uncaged” with Heritage Bank being the headline sponsor, NYIF being its official partner and MSport and SIFAX group as its Gold associate sponsors.
Speaking to journalists during a media briefing for the commencement of the season 8 of the business reality show in Lagos, its Executive Producer, Bravopoints International Limited, Mide Akinlaja, said that apart from the success stories of the previous winners of the show which has been phenomenal, the Next Titan being on national television has positively impacted on the generality of other young people which resulted in a paradigm shift in their minds to moving from job-seekers to job-creators.
Akinlaja stated that the show has already received thousands of entries from young aspiring entrepreneurs across the nation.
He also noted that the show would give young ambitious entrepreneurs another opportunity to showcase their business ideas and battle one another for a grand prize of N15 million to start their dream business.
He remarked that the Season 8 would start by allowing contestants to pitch their business ideas through auditions from 6 major cities- Abuja, Kano, Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Ibadan and Lagos.
According to him, “Those who would not be able to attend physically will be given an opportunity to audition virtually. The Top 50 would be selected for the Top 50 Boot Camp which will be trimmed to 16 contestants with brightest ideas to compete by carrying out weekly business tasks and challenges around the city of Lagos for 10 weeks on television and with weekly evictions in the boardroom by the judges.
“A minimum of 500 and maximum of 1000 contestants from auditions will qualify for funding of up to N3 million courtesy of the FMYSD. We are excited about the new season and we know that this would change the mindset of the young people by awakening their entrepreneurial audacity and creativity.”
Corroborating him, the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, said that youths no longer need empowerment but investment.
He explained that for this reason, the President as at last year, approved the NYIF, which is the N75 billion ring-fenced fund for youths MSMEs.
Dare, who was represented by his Special Assistant to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Oluwakemi Areola, stated that access to funding is very important to the young people and called for partnership between the FG and the private sector to ensure that its initiatives/strategies empower budding entrepreneurs.
“If we are able to get up to a thousand people out of the show and are able to receive between N2.5 million to N3 million from the Federal government, that will be a win for us,” he said.
