From Airtel, lifeline for young Nigerians

By Erhumu Bayagbon

*Ogunsanya, Airtel Nigeria CEO

Erhumu Bayagbon writes that Airtel Nigeria has significantly increased its investment in youth development, providing a major lifeline for young Nigerians through a number of robust and credible platforms, including Catapult-a-Start-up, Adopt-a- School programme, Airtel Rising Stars and the One-Mic music initiative.

Whether it is a product, service, enterprise programme or Corporate Social Responsibility intervention, Airtel Nigeria has been consistent in its quest to establish solid platforms to empower young Nigerians and enable them secure a bright future. Indeed, the records speak glowingly of the leading telco that became famous for revolutionizing the GSM tariff one month after launching a new brand name in 2010. Even many cynics are becoming converts after a cursory look at the organization’s recent strides at providing a hope, a future and a lifeline for young Nigerians.

Just this week, Airtel announced a unique programme for young Nigerian entrepreneurs christened Catapult-a-Start-up. At the press conference, which held at the Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, described the initiative as yet another major step to empowering Nigerian youths and creating a solid platform for them to leverage on to success, saying the initiative is in line with the company’s overriding ambition of becoming the most loved brand in the daily lives of Nigerians.

The Airtel Catapult-a-Startup programme is an entrepreneurial initiative designed to assist start-up application (app) developers to actualize their dreams of becoming

entrepreneurs. With the programme, Airtel is offering opportunities to budding mobile applications developers to receive advanced mentoring from industry veterans, funding and also hone their skills to become entrepreneurs using their creativity. Notable organizations including Mobile Monday, Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, 88mph, Blue Management, Seven Colors, Ascenso and Nazara are also partnering with Airtel to implement the programme.

To participate in the contest, interested start-ups can submit their ideas and presentations online on www.airtelcas.com , the Airtel Catapult-a-Startup website for evaluation. After the initial evaluation, selected start-ups will be invited for in-person pitching, where they will be required to present their ideas to a panel of judges who will then do a thorough evaluation and also select the best start-ups. Those selected subsequently will be provided with a cash prize of one million naira, mentoring, funding and a chance to integrate their developed apps and services with Airtel network and have access to the large customer base spread across 20 countries in Africa and Asia.

According to Ogunsanya, Airtel is as an innovative and caring brand that has initiated the Catapult-a-Startup programme in line with its vision to encourage innovation and empower young Nigerians by creating opportunities for them to bring their business ideas to fruition. “At Airtel, we are passionate about building a community for young talented Nigerians. We know that there are thousands of young people who are blessed with the skills to develop relevant apps, but most of them do not have opportunities to showcase or develop their skills. So through the Catapult-a-Startup programme, we will not only be able to identify the talent, but also encourage local content through this initiative. The apps and services developed by these start-ups will ride on Airtel’s superior 3.75G network in Nigeria and the large customer base. Airtel will continue to go the extra mile to empowering them to succeed in their respective endeavours.”

Earlier in the year, Airtel in partnership with Google bankrolled a programme that is similar to the Catapult-a-Start-up programme. Dubbed the Google App Developer Challenge, the initiative provided opportunities for thousands of young Nigerians to improve their skills in Apps development. The Google Cloud Developer contest saw the emergence of three winners who developed creative Apps with distinct features. They were rewarded with exciting cash prizes to enable them to further improve their skills and become entrepreneurs.

Aside providing opportunities for young Nigerians in the ICT domain, Airtel is also creating several platforms to uplift talented, young Nigerians. In the area of football, the Airtel Rising Stars platform, which is currently in its fourth season, has become a household name across the country. Each year, thousands of talented young boys and girls are offered opportunities to showcase their talents and also participate in regional, national and continental youth championships.

It is noteworthy that the past three editions of ARS programme have produced exceptionally talented Nigerians. At the maiden edition, Most Valuable Players were flown to South Africa for a one-week exclusive international football clinic at the prestigious Institute for Sports, Cape Town, South Africa. Two years ago, the MVPs participated in a week-long extensive training session in Ghana. Last year, MVPs were flown to Rwanda for a week-long training session under supervision from UEFA certified Arsenal coaches.

The Airtel Rising Stars Football programme has produced exceptional talents and they include: Musa Mohammed Shehu- Captain Golden Eaglets U17- (ARS 2011); Zahradden Bello- U17- ARS (2012); AL Hassan Ibrahim Abdullahi- U17- ARS (2011); Muri Lawal- Sunshine Stars FC Akure- ARS (2011); Josephine Mathias- Falconets, Pelican Stars FC Calabar- ARS (2011), among several others.

This year, Airtel also announced a programme, the Airtel One Mic, to discover talented musicians across major campuses in the country. The Airtel One Mic initiative is in line with the company’s vision to consistently encourage and empower Nigerian youths to achieve their dreams and the project was designed to involve universities and polytechnics in Nigeria. The maiden edition of the programme held in select tertiary institutions in Ogun state including Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), Abeokuta; Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB) and The Bells University, Otta. The winner, ND 1 Business Administration Student of MAPOLY, Temidayo Omoniyi, aka ‘Zlatan’, was rewarded with a brand new KIA Picanto and a recording contract with ID Cabasa’s Coded Tunes.

Olatunji Oladotun Alade, an undergraduate of the University of Lagos, emerged winner of the Lagos regional finals of Airtel One Mic, a music talent-hunt competition for tertiary institutions driven by leading telecommunications service provider, Airtel Nigeria. The 200 Level student popularly known as ‘Dotman’ held off very strong challenge from five other zonal finalists in the keenly contested regional final held at the Beverly International Events Centre, Bariga, Lagos, to win the star prize, a brand new KIA Picanto. In addition to the star prize, he was also rewarded with a full artiste makeover and recording deal with ID Cabasa’s Coded Tunes. The contestants for the Lagos regional finals were drawn from Yaba College of Technology, Lagos State University and the University of Lagos after an intra-school competition which produced two representatives for each school to make up the six final contestants. In the contest that crisscrossed tertiary institutions in the West regions, Alalade Ololade, a 200 level Psychology student with stage name ‘Jay Dreamz’ was adjudged winner of the West Regional finals by the trio of ID Cabasa, Reminisce and Black Magic, judges in the music talent-hunt competition which is sponsored by leading telecoms operator, Airtel Nigeria.

Airtel has also scored big in the area of primary education, especially as this affects young Nigerians. The telco has demonstrated that its partnership with government at different levels towards the development of primary education is for the long haul. And the evidence is in the open: In four years of operation, the Airtel has transformed the lives of thousands of underprivileged kids, built and renovated schools from the Interiors of Ediba, a community in Cross Rivers State through Oke-Agbo, a community in Ogun State and Amumara, a community in Mbaise, Imo State to Ajegunle, popular Lagos Community. It has also invested millions of naira completing multi-million naira renovation projects and has donated hundreds of thousands of note books and text books to empower young Nigerians.

Airtel’s CEO, Ogunsanya, summarized the thrust of its company’s CSR programme thus: “Our Adopt-a-School programme is a robust intervention that thrives on a singular mantra: ‘when we adopt a school, we adopt for life.’ This is the same thing as adopting a child. When you adopt a child, that person – daughter or son – becomes yours for life. You do not adopt – renovate a structure and make some donations and just go away. That’s why our Adopt-a-School programme is different. Schools we have adopted will continue to benefit from us indefinitely.”

“Without a doubt, quality education offers children the best opportunity in life to realise their dreams and become the leaders of tomorrow. A great environment is also critical to the development of a sound mind. It is, therefore, in recognition of the importance of education and as part our Corporate Social Responsibility vision that we have committed to the adoption of public primary schools across Nigeria,” he said.

Without a doubt, it is clear that Airtel Nigeria is committed to its brand vision of becoming the most loved brand in the daily lives of Nigerians.

Bayagbon, Public Relations Manager of Airtel Nigeria, Lives in Lagos