NAME: ABAYOMI KAYODE PROGRAMME: ELECT/ELECT REG. NO.

: 1103624 COURSE : EDS

YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Earth, the only known planet to support life, God created this world, and placed man on it to rule over it, that man was Adam, After the fall Adam had to work to ensure the survival of himself and his family, God left him to manage his resources in order to earn a living, thus becoming the first entrepreneur. The word entrepreneur was adapted during the late 19th century from the French word entreprendre - meaning someone who undertakes, in other words an entrepreneur is a risk taking businessman; someone who assumes the responsibility and the risk for a business operation with the expectation of making a profit. As future leaders of the world, we have a role to play in entrepreneurship, if not us no one will. The problems facing today s youths in the field of entrepreneurship are too numerous to itemize, but I have summarized a few pressing issues which if effectively addressed will definitely revolutionize entrepreneurship in this nation and indeed the world, making it an affair not only for the aged but also for the youth with life impacting ideas. They are as follows; Sole aim of profit making Age (Appropriate time to start) What to produce/ideas Sponsors Illiteracy

Sole Aim of Profit-making Today, the number of entrepreneurs are as many as the diverse business ventures, one does not require a world changing invention or innovation bound to generate large amount of profit to become an entrepreneur, a simple idea which will positively affect the lives of people. The issue of profit making has misled a number of would-be entrepreneurs, especially young school-leavers. In Nigeria, every teen/youth, dreams endlessly of owning his/her own firm, enterprise, company and the like, with the sole aim of making profit, although they may have a lot of bright ideas, they have the wrong motives for these ideas, because any business venture undertaken with the sole aim of making profit is bound to crash.
Solution

The spirit of entrepreneurship should be inculcated into the youth, as next generation leaders of this nation and the world at large, we should imbibe the spirit of entrepreneurship, i.e. we should discover or produce ideas that will provide solutions to problems faced by humanity. If we put this into consideration, there is no doubt that we will become successful entrepreneurs in the near future. Age In other cases, majority of the youth in Nigeria and around the globe, feel Entrepreneurship is better left to the aged, which is a terrible opinion, as a responsible youth, one should desire to learn from the experience acquired by successful entrepreneurs in order to attain or exceed such levels of success. Besides, a number of

modern day entrepreneurs started in their youth, such as Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook) etc.
Solution

We should ignore the fact that most of the world s great entrepreneurs are nowhere near us age wise, but we should consider the fact that we can affect our world no matter our age, all you need is yourself, because God has deposited in us a lot of resources, if only we can harness such resources, the sky will be our starting point. Also, youths have higher thinking capacity compared to adults, this advantage gives us an edge over the adults, we can reason faster than they, thus we can discover new ideas and innovations more easily than adults, and therefore we should not shy away from entrepreneurship. What to produce/Ideas
Most youth are faced with the problem of not having ideas and so and just decide to remain in their corner without engaging their intellect. This has led to the death of a lot of dreams and ideas of these future leaders. This is a major issue that needs to be tackled for successful involvement of the youth in entrepreneurship. Solution

Looking around us we have a lot of ideas just waiting to be discovered you simply have to think of how to help people around you; what you think people we need, what would really help your friends that is not easily available to them. For instance, your Thursday lectures end by 9.00 pm and you and your course mates are usually hungry every Thursday night, you can purchase food in bulk at a free period during

the day store well and sell it to them at night. Such ideas are bound to make profit because, you can purchase at discount when buying in bulk and you are also seeking to satisfy the needs of others. Sponsors The youth with loads of ideas and innovations, is helpless without any financial backing, this is a factor highly rampant in the third world countries, the youth have adequate and life impacting ideas. This has killed off a lot of dreams of young would-be entrepreneurs.
Solution

The youth need to be encouraged to produce ideas and innovations, the government should encourage the youth by giving them loans to create designs and make their dreams a reality. Also, private individuals and firms should invest in bright individuals. The youth should also post their ideas online on blog sites and the like, to further increase the chances of sponsorship by willing individuals. Illiteracy
The issue of illiteracy is not far-fetched it is a bottleneck in the present day society. It limits the ideas of the youth unfortunate to be in this situation. It is a terrible problem, that prevents creation of ideas.

Solution

We need schools; we need books, cheap education, workshops, learning programs to enhance our ability to think constructively. The government should play active role in educating the average youth, to bring about a revolution of young entrepreneurs who will positively affect the lives of fellow youth and the society at large. With this I hope I have effectively summarized the involvement of youth in entrepreneurship on a local and global view, I leave you a quote by a world renown Entrepreneur:

The challllenge iin a sttartt-up iis tthatt you allways have tto spread your The cha enge n a s ar -up s ha you a ways have o spread your wiings pretttty far tto see whatt wiillll work.. w ngs pre y far o see wha w work
-Michael Dell (C.E.O. Dell computers)

If it hasn t been done, go do it