Perspective

The organisers The Future Awards 2010 have announced the second edition of the annual The Future Pre-Awards “Do Something” Conference. It holds on Saturday, 6 February 2009, a day before the awards night.

“We will be giving young people the rare opportunity to meet some of the highest achieving young Nigerians you can find,” Chude Jideonwo, the event’s creative director said. “The conference was an idea that started last year as an extension of our plans to use The Future Awards to develop more practical programmes that can give young people access to knowledge skills and experience that can move them forward. As usual, the focus of our efforts is on role modelling, and this follows that trend.”

The Future conference is different from other conferences because the young people are not sitting down and listening to lectures. “We don’t want that – there is enough of that and we don’t think it’s particularly effective, especially given how broken down our structures are in this country,” Jideonwo said. “At this point, we believe that Nigeria needs to listen to young people to know their issues and how to engage them. Therefore, the format is that these young people are free to ask these role models any questions they have. It’s no holds barred!” Read the rest of this entry »

After eight years of producing and hosting the acclaimed studio talk show, New Dawn, Funmi Iyanda is returning to the screen at the helm of a different kind of show. The new project is called Talk With Funmi (TWF).

Talk With Funmi is an exciting new programme that captures people around Nigeria. It is a thought provoking, illuminating and entertaining journey into the life of Nigerians from all over the country.

Funmi Iyanda journeys from state to state talking with Nigerians from all spheres of life. The show talks to people everywhere – capturing discussions that range from the hard hitting stories of the day to day challenges of Nigeria with some light-hearted banter and fun along the way. With the first season of recording already completed in some states, don’t be surprised if TWF soon shows up at your doorstep.

Beautifully produced and shot on high definition video, Talk With Funmi is a technical masterpiece. The excellent cinematography and deep, rich colours of the production provide tactile pleasure. TWF is an artistic blend of documentary, reality television and talk show and thus resists categorization. The result is groundbreaking and innovative television from a production team led by award-winning director Chris Dada.
With 36 states, over 200 ethnic groups and 140 million people, Nigeria is alive and teeming with vibrant stories. Nigerians are a people who love to talk, and Nigerians still have great stories to tell – stories of joy, laughter, hard work and success. Stories of suffering and harrowing pain; stories of hope and resilience in spite of all odds. As Nigeria moves towards 50, this is the perfect opportunity to capture transformative Nigerian conversations—conversations that will ignite meaningful change.

It is the power of these conversations that will unlock the potential of our nation and reaffirm the bonds that hold us together as a country. These are the stories that award winning broadcaster and journalist Funmi Iyanda has set out to capture in an ambitious and innovative television show.
The TWF journey promises to be one that is fresh, eye opening and fun and will be broadcast to TV audiences across Africa.

Talk With Funmi is an Ignite Media production.

END

For further information:
Eniola Harrison
0805 771 0212
eharrison (at) ignitemediang.com

For young Nigerian web designers, here is your chance to contribute to Nation building and win national recognition. Can you design a website? Then here is your chance to make a mark in the web design contest of the Federal Ministry of Youth Development in partnership of Youngstars Foundation.

Web Specification
Your web site should be interactive and able to accommodate data base and online workshops/forums.

Interested young designers are to submit their entries which should include:

-A 2 paged website dummy for The Federal Ministry of Youth Development including the Home page and the Navigation page.

-Curriculum Vitae.

-Passport photographs

-2 referees.

Eligibility: Only Nigerian Nationals aged 18 – 35 years, resident in Nigeria. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are an undergraduate seeking to gain practical work experience before you graduate, this call is for you! Wonder what your CV would look like when you do graduate and looking to improve its contents? Want to build a potentially life-long mentoring relationship with your boss who will guide you along your career path?

Positive Impact Network & GET Mentored present a unique opportunity for undergraduates to gain practical work experience, to make good use of spare time they may have (due to holidays, strikes or reduced work load) and to learn and earn, in the 3rd edition of the Summer Youth Internship Connect (SYNC) Programme.

What is it? The SYNC programme is a formal work/study mentoring programme that attaches young undergraduates to mentors for specifically defined periods- usually 6-8weeks. During this period, your mentor will pay you a monthly salary in exchange for you to perform daily tasks for him/ her. Tasks are as varied as your talent, and at the end of the day, your abilities would ensure when you leave school, you have exceptional references to fall back on! Read the rest of this entry »

The Future Project, Nigeria was, from the 6^th to 12^th of July, selected to represent Nigeria at a youth exchange sponsored by the European Commission in Latvia. The Republic of Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe – bordered to the right by Russia.

The youth exchange was part of a large scale project, Sharing World Youth Skills, financed by the European Commission and organized by Code International, The Netherlands and Youth Leaders Coalition, Latvia in partnership with organizations from Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Ghana, Cote d’Ivore, Bolivia, Brasilia and Mexico. The Future Project, Nigeria/The Future Awards was the only organisation from Africa.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre is a Nigerian nongovernmental organization working to encourage Nigerian girls and women to use information and communication technology (ICT) to empower themselves socially and economically is currently accepting application for its coming ICT empowerment Young Women’s Programme. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello people!

Happy New Year ‘009. I had this interview with Lateef Olajide, an Internet Business Strategist. Lateef is a brain behind www.internetmarketingnigeria.com

Happy reading…..

SN: Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?

Lateef: My name is Lateef Olajide. I am from Ogun State precisely, Abeokuta. I had my primary and secondary school education in Abeokuta. I found myself in Lagos sometime 1997 and since then Lagos has been my base.

I had a very VERY VERY humble background. I learnt how to feed myself and sibling while I was still in junior secondary school. After my secondary education I wanted to go to the university to study medicine just like my friend but couldn’t make it for some reasons. I stayed at home for couple of months after secondary school examinations. Eventually I found myself in a freight forwarding company in Lagos as an apprentice without my wish.

The company was full of greedy people so I couldn’t make it to the sea-port where the real action is to learn much. So I decided to take part time course in shipping to study import and export management. It is advance diploma course.

I made up my mind very early in my life that I am going to be an entrepreneur and create job for others here in Nigeria and will never leave this country until I become a millionaire. That exactly is what I am doing now. Making more money here in Nigeria than most of my friends that abscond to USA and UK years back. Read the rest of this entry »

Damilare Onajole started playing with computers in late 2002. His first computer was a Pentium II, Windows ‘98 runned computer, actually owned by his father for business. Engrossed by the awe the internet holds, he picked up his first HTML 3.2 lessons from www.w3schools.org

I had this interview with him recently. Enjoy it….

SN: Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?

Damilare: I am Damilare Onajole, a self self-taught technopreneur currently studying Philosophy at Lagos State University. I started doing web development in 2003; it all started as a hobby, then became a business a few years later. Problem solving has always been my hobby, so I naturally fell into web applications development and internet businesses.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had this interview (via email) with Francis Onwumere. He is a freelance web developer. You can also find this interview @ www.startupsnigeria.com

Enjoy the interview…

Francis said no matter the difficulty you are facing as a startup

“Start by having a plan. At least start and don’t let the difficulties woo you”

SN: Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?

Francis: I’m a 25 year old freelance web developer and have been doing this professionally for close to four years now, mainly as a means of extra income while studying chemistry at University of Nigeria.

Originally it all started by chance. I had just finished secondary school in 2000 and while trying to gain admission into university, I came across this HTML book at one Akoka study centre in Lagos. Alongside my A-Level studies, I gradually began to explore the world of HTML and web design.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fresh off massively successful tours of Benin, Abuja, and Enugu, The Future Awards 2009 hit in quick succession the cities of Kaduna and Calabar with its ground-breaking idea of town hall meetings.

The Kaduna town hall meeting held in the final week of October at the NAF Club, Kaduna, with more than a hundred young people from the state of Kaduna as well as neighboring northern states in attendance, including Jos, Zamfara, Abuja and Kogi.

“Interestingly enough,” reports Adebola Williams, the Awards operations director, who has been co-ordinating the tour, “a lot of the youths in the North, even more so than Enugu for example, knew extensively about The Future Awards, which is a basic rejection of all those assumptions that people in the North are either not attuned to the media or the internet. Many knew the website offhand! Those ones were so excited, they took the microphone and told other about the Awards and the inspiration they have gotten from the young people it celebrates – it was very encouraging to hear!”

The discussion at the town hall expectedly moved to the stereotypes and misconceptions about the North; speaking of the immense talent the region holds and the lack of opportunities. The youth spoke of the tendency to feel ‘inferior’ to youths from Lagos, but impressively enough, there was a firm refusal to blame anybody for this lack of opportunities. “It isn’t enough to have talent,” one of those who spoke, Henry Gyang, a recent graduate from Unimaid, said, “You also need to step out of your comfort zone and find opportunity. Once in a while opportunity might come knocking on your door yes, but most of the time you need to go look for it.” Read the rest of this entry »