2-4 September, 2017
Oya Opportunities organized their first ever OPPORTUNITY AFRICA ENTREPRENEURSHIP FORUM at the Lagos International Scout Training Center along with their co-organizers FutureHack.
The bootcamp brought together 54 participants from 12 different countries and gave them the opportunity to share their entrepreneurial ideas with each other while learning from speakers who have real-world experience on the field.
For 3 days, the venue was full of excitement, creativity, and innovation. 11 speakers from different countries yet equally qualified in their fields shared their knowledge and experiences on various aspects of entrepreneurship.
Andrew Ngui, senior program manager at MIT, spoke about “Finding your way” on the first day of the bootcamp.
Other sessions had Abhinav Krishna Gautam ,an alumnus from Carnegie Mellon University and founder of two startups, who presented on “Who is your customer”; Rahuel Stone, the founder of Indo Global Trade Connectors and head of marketing at Tenovia Solutions on “The Art of Selling Value”; Jitesh Surendran, the CEO of Mercantile Exchange Nepal Limited, on “Primary Market Research”; and Bharat Monteiro, the director for South Africa for Masimo Corporation shared his ideas on “Building Startups within Large Multinational Corporations”.
Whereas Joseph Oboh, a Wall Street veteran, advisor and mentor at the X-Lab in Nigeria's top university, Lagos and Oya Opportunities, took a skype session on “Power of Exponential Learning” like Megan Chirstensen, the vice president of Watson University, who talked about the new idea “Social Enterprise”.
From Nepal, Subash Pandey, the corporate advisor in Nepal Investment Bank Limited (NIBL) Capital spoke on “Finances for Startups”, and the duo of Ravi Singhal, CEO of Social Aves and cofounder of Sarathi Cab, and Prakash Neupane, cofounder of Sarathi Cab and Nepflights, also shared on “Fundraising for a Startup”.
The speakers covered topics that ranged from basics of a startup to the complexities of multinational businesses. For the final pitch, teams were given 5 minutes to pitch their ideas and then a Q&A session from the judges.
The judges would then rate each team according to their idea and pitch to determine the winner. The participants pitched some great ideas, all of which could have turned into a real business. There were business models: Chyine -a traditionally made alcohol is remade and sold commercially with much better quality, Let’s Connect -an online platform to connect investors with startups, The Next Live -media that aims to give out the least biased information to the consumers, Traveller’s Euphoria -a travel company that aims to connect people to the local culture of where they go, IDEBUS -a organization that hopes to develop self-development skills in youths, Hire Any Photographer -an another online platform that connects people with photographers to capture their experiences, Practical Education -an online based education company that offers courses to students from videos and exercises, Green Municipality -a social enterprise that aims to earn money by advertising while planting trees in a local level, and Professional Social Network(Proso) -a new form of social media that will connect people with similar tastes and opinions in a professional level.
After the final pitch, the CEO of Oya Opportunities, Ms. Parshu Aryal also announced that the third bootcamp was going to be held in cape town, South Africa. It was then announced that the winning team will be invited to the next OPPORTUNITY AFRICA ENTREPRENEURSHIP FORUM, and moved on to revealing the name of the team that won: Agnes. The bootcamp concluded with the winning team celebrating, photos being taken here and there, handshakes all over the venue, words of encouragement and friendship being spread, and the feeling of accomplishment filled with the spirit of entrepreneurship. Many budding entrepreneurs from various countries, like Tanzania, Botswana, Philippines, and Zimbabwe, then gathered to take one last photo before departing; together under the name of OPPORTUNITY AFRICA ENTREPRENEURSHIP FORUM.
