30 winners of the Corpreneurship Challenge, a Unity Bank Plc initiative to promote entrepreneurship, received grants totaling N10 million.
The ninth iteration of the program, which aims to empower recent graduates and corps members serving a one-year mandatory national youth service, awarded the awards.
The winners were determined via a business pitch presentation given in each of the ten participating states: Rivers, Delta, Sokoto, Edo, Abuja, Akwa-Ibom, Osun, Kano, Bayelsa, and Enugu. Apiece state produced three winners who received cash awards of N500,000, N300,000, and N200,000 each.
The winners concentrated on fostering entrepreneurship in the fields of confections, agroprocessing, fashion, cosmetics, and renewable energy.
The winner of the N500,000 grand prize was Muoneke Gift, whose business idea focused on renewable energy, at the Rivers State NYSC Orientation camp at Nonwa Gbam Tai. With a proposal for a firm offering beauty services, Ilesanmi Olamide received first runner-up honors and a N300,000 business grant.
A N200,000 grant was awarded for Ekanem Moses Idoreyin’s confectionary company idea.
The winners were determined after a panel evaluated the business plans, looking for concepts that showed creativity, marketability, future employment potential of the product, and business acumen.
The Unity Bank Corpreneurship Challenge, which has helped no less than 100 young entrepreneurs over the years, has gradually joined the ranks of some of the most effective initiatives for developing youth entrepreneurship.
Beulah Yusuf, one of the recipients in Sokoto, has successfully established her recycling business using the grant she obtained from the bank after finishing as second runner-up in one of the editions. She introduced her goods, which have received widespread praise for solving waste management inefficiencies and environmental contamination, highlighting the bank’s reasons for continuing the program.
Olufunwa Akinmade, Group Head, Retail, E-Business and SME Banking, said the bank was thrilled with the outstanding results the Corpreneurship Challenge had so far pulled during the conclusion at Rivers State NYSC Orientation Camp recently.
“When we launched the initiative in 2019, we set out to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs that will disrupt the job market by creating much-needed jobs across all sectors. Today, we have come a long way and the Corpreneurship Challenge has lived up to its billing,” he said.
