By Chinwendu Obienyi
Access Bank Plc took another bold step in its quest to encourage entrepreneurial zeal in young graduates as it has rewarded ten youth corps members in Lagos through its Accesspreneur Challenge with seed funds to start or boost their businesses.
At the competition which took place at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Iyana Ipaja, Lagos, the ten corps members went through a pitch process and the final five took part in the grand finale. They were jostling for seed funds from N150, 000 to N1 million. The programme which was in partnership with the NYSC also held simultaneously in Kaduna, Anambra, Abuja and Niger, with the star winners receiving N1 million each.
The keenly contested challenge, which was moderated by eminent professionals in business, banking, and accounting produced Dorisamu John Tobiloba as the first prize winner of N1 million, Adeyemi Oluwatobi as the second prize winner with N700,000, while third place winner went home with N400,00 seed fund.
There was N250,000 for the fourth-place winner and N150,000 for the fifth-place winner while there was a consolation of N100,000 each for the other five participants who couldn’t make it to the final.
Daily Sun gathered that the competition, which is a way to support young men and women who are just graduating from university to grow, has proved to have a great impact on youth empowerment in the country as the bank has been receiving more entries during the current challenge.
While admonishing the participants for good presentations, Mrs. Omowumi Falade, Branch Manager, Access Bank in Ikotun, who represented the Regional Sales Manager, Lagos Zone, Olufemi Olayinka, said the bank is happy that the impact of the Accessprenuer challenge has been good and that the bank is ready to do more,
She said, “Well, the participants are happy, it is good to be a winner and you know, listening to their pitch presentations; it was wonderful because you know that most of them have innovative solutions or business solutions that will impact the economy positively.
“We know that youths are the future and the hope of our nation, so it’s beautiful to be in their presence and listen to all their pitch presentations.
“As a bank, Access Bank is passionate about the youths, they are the future of a great nation Nigeria. This is why we have a strategic partnership with the NYSC way back in 2016. It evolved into Accessprenuer in February 2021 and this is the seventh edition.
“Aside from that, we have a Facebook community where all winners come together to share ideas and interact freely and help each other to resolve whatever business issues that they have in order to have a solution. We have invested over N240 million in our seed capital so far and we have been able to positively impact over 400 winners in the last couple of years.
The winner of the grand prize of the N1 million seed fund, Dorisamu John, who was elated about the fund, thanked Access Bank and promised to use the fund to improve his business.
He said, “I am very happy today and I never believed this was possible. My company’s name is Refill Nigeria and it is a mobile enabler of convenience for students in Nigeria. So think about it like an instant cart for students in tertiary institutions, we are the one.
“For the business right now, we started operations in 2019 already and we’ll be doing a whole lot now and that was what I was trying to convince the judges about. Something I have known about business is that at every stage you need to scale up for optimal performance.
“For instance, if you are doing very well selling soft drinks and you have a fridge, not a freezer. You know you will need to ensure that your drinks have to always be cold and you will need a freezer. So currently what we just need is a logistics unit, which we currently outsource to an outsider. And this has not given us the opportunity to make money from that and this has not been helping the business grow well because you called a logistics partner sometimes to do a delivery which you can do yourself and make more money.
“So what this N1 million will do for the business is that we will own that logistics unit, it will improve the business and now we can do things at our own pace and render fast service to our customers, and of course, we have a lot of marketing strategies that we have not been able to execute as a result of financial constraints because operations must come first before marketing expenses. So, with this, we will be able to get goods delivered by our own motorcycle right on time and prompt”.
Dorisamu, who confessed that he was almost about to give up running the business, said the Access Bank’s gesture is coming at the right time for him.
“The truth is that I was at a point where I was thinking of closing the business because I need money to scale the business because it has been difficult for me to be able to pump a lot of money into the business. What Access Bank just did to me is revive my passion for the business and I am very happy about what they have done. This is really going to help a lot of youths out there realize their dreams. I say thank you to Access Bank”, he concluded.