The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin T. Ogundipe, FAS on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 received a high-powered delegation who were on a courtesy visit to his office at the Senate House.
The team, led by the Founder of Capital MetriQ group and an Online Reputation Management Mogul, Mr. Abiodun Sowemimo who revealed that their visit was basically centred around giving support to the university in areas that bothers on the development of education system, particularly on innovation and entrepreneurship.
He asserted that the aim is to provide innovative financial solutions through their several areas of strength that includes IT, healthcare provisions, mentorship, etc to improve the quality of life in the society and empower the economically underprivileged so as to become self-reliant and gain skill needed to graduate into the national financial market.
Mr. Sowemimo who was in company of his friends, Dr. Gbadamosi Adefemi, an alumnus of the University of Lagos and founder, FolaDavid Foundation; Mr. Andu Adedeji, founder and CEO Klappeton Academy and Mr. Temitope Ogunsemo who oversees the operation of Krystal Digital Solutions. They had different time to speak about their works and achievements.
In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor thanked them and emphasised on the developments and success recorded by the University that transcend research, Innovation, grants awards, human capital development as well as in the area of skills acquisition and entrepreneurship. He highlighted the areas of needs of the university to be more financial, mentorship support, trainings for the students. He said the university seek to achieve these goals by partnering with several organizations for sponsorship of programs that have the capacity to motivate and ignite the latent creativity, entrepreneurial interests as well as develop the relevant business skills in the students.
He touched on the effect of the COVID-19 on Education and how the University responded with several interventions like the ambuvent, a ventilator designed by a team of researchers, which he revealed has undergone clinical trial. He said in the face of the resurgence of COVID-19, public lectures, meetings, all academic activities of the institution, including examinations were conducted online.
Similarly, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Development Services, Prof. Ayodele Atsenuwa said the University being the torchbearer in entrepreneurship advocacy continues to break barriers through partnerships, and seminars to encourage students to acquire skills required to develop new ventures and start-ups, such as innovative thinking, business creativity, business planning, proposal writing, risk taking abilities, and business management skills, targeted towards developing the real sector of the Nigeria economy and making the graduates potential employers of labour rather than seekers of employment.
She however mentioned that certain factors like poor funding, negative attitude toward entrepreneurship education, mostly by parents, have considerably hindered the integration of entrepreneurial orientation into the students or their wards whilst calling for a need to sensitize parents who are mostly paranoid about particular courses of study for their wards.
The Law Professor posited that the unspoken embargo on employment is a pointer to the need to create a vibrant ecosystem and the right interventions that could open the door for the continent’s young and dynamic entrepreneurs and help build linkages with the large firms. These, she said, are the key drivers of supply chains to create jobs and revenues to help scale up businesses.
