ABUJA ENTERPRISE AGENCY PAYS A COURTESY VISIT TO VICE CHANCELLOR, SEEKS COLLABORATIONS. 

The Chief Executive Officer, Abuja Enterprise Agency  paid Vice-Chancellor, Prof. William Qurix OFR, a courtesy visit to seek collaborations between its agency and the University.

While introducing the team, the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Innovation and Leadership Studies at Bingham University, Dr. Marvelous Aigbedion stated that the visit of the Agency was to seek areas of collaboration with a focus on developing Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSME) culture among students of the University. 

In his  remarks, the CEO of Abuja Enterprise Agency, Mr. Shehu Abdulkadir said he was delighted atn the audience granted him and his team. He stated that the agency was established in 2006 by the FCT administration. Since then, over 120,00 MSMEs have been established in Abuja and other parts of the country. 

The Agency focuses on the development of MSMEs and aims to assist new and existing entrepreneurs to overcome obstacles to growth through access to finance and developing entrepreneurship skills.  The purpose of their visit was to introduce a new project which is aimed at deepening entrepreneurship skills in the university which will enhance creativity and innovation and to also enhance entrepreneurial capacity and imbibe a culture of self-reliance and confidence among tertiary students. 

The objectives of the project are to enhance entrepreneurial capacity, build an ecosystem for viable businesses within the school, and promote self-confidence and self-reliance.   He added that they have successfully established an entrepreneurial club that holds competitions among students. To encourage MSMEs, they have partnered with the Corporate Affairs Commission to register businesses at a subsidized rate.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof Qurix in his response thanked the team for visiting, stressing that they were in the right place. He added that during the last convocation, the former NUC Executive Secretary, Prof Abubakar Rasheed described Bingham University as the entrepreneurial capital of Nigerian universities.

  Prof Qurix stated that the university has done a lot and developed a concept which we call entrepreneurial training, the concept clearly distinguishes skills acquisition and entrepreneurship.  He added that the university has a training centre currently being expanded which will serve as an incubation centre to float ideas, organize competitions, and subsequently participate in national competitions where the best will be selected and incubated.

Prof Qurix stated that the students who are interested in registering their company can easily do that with the Abuja Enterprise Agency while they are here, and companies will spring up from such a partnership. He added that the University has secured a partnership with the Swedish embassy which is aimed at providing digital entrepreneurship skills. The partnership with Wolverhampton University UK is geared towards training in entrepreneurship. Prof Qurix stated that the university has developed a training manual guide for students. The structure of the teaching here is to ensure every discipline has entrepreneurship content and every student will have to go to the centre to learn general courses specific to entrepreneurship.

Prof Qurix stated that the University’s curriculum has been revised and discipline-specific entrepreneur courses are now being introduced, which means for every discipline, there is a specific entrepreneur course that the student can have. He added that in the university, we are pursuing social science, science technical and natural science models.

Prof. Qurix concluded by stating that this collaboration will have a significant impact on the university.

The visit concluded with the team's tour of the Entrepreneurship Center, which is currently undergoing expansion.