Interview with Google Star Ambassador.

Entrepreneurship is not trade. It’s more about spotting opportunities and matching them up with a course of study, a vocation or an idea to create value. Adepoju Emmanuel Abiodun’s story basically exemplifies that. Popularly called “Biggy” among his pears, he has been able to rise from the average student status to being a model to so many students in Nigeria and beyond its shores. Biggy is a 400 level student of the Department of Computer Science, University of Ibadan and is the Google Star Ambassador for the 2012 class.

In this interview, he shares with us his experiences, his drive, his passion, and his thirst for more than the average.

How did you become a Google Ambassador?

(Laughs) Everybody asks me that question every day. A friend of mine came to me and said ‘I know you like to do stuff like this, will you check this out?’ And I seized the opportunity. I was chosen because of the quality of my application and they wanted to know who I was.

What was the criteria, was it just an essay?

Apart from the essay, one was required to be text savvy and know a lot about Google products, read a lot and be able to lead, be able to organize events and carry a whole lot of people along.

How was the experience being the Google ambassador?

It’s been good working with Google, but there are a lot of sacrifices involved. A part of the good is that you are famous. If you work hard, you get to travel a lot, meet the elite, and if you learn to optimize your opportunities well you’ll get the best out of it. The bad part of it is that you get to sacrifice a lot because the truth is, before you make significant impact at anything, sacrifice must come in, and that’s how it works.

What does a Google ambassador do?

Basically, Google ambassadors are links between various Universities and Google. Google realized that universities are usually where potentials are, and so we are currently focusing on Universities in Africa, analyzing, developing and maximizing the potentials. It’s the same way diplomats serve as a link between two countries. So everything the ambassador does is all about Google-hold events around Google, bring opportunities close to lecturers about Google and so on.

In the last one year, my area of jurisdiction was the University of Ibadan and its environs but now I’m a mentor to all Google Ambassadors in Africa and some parts of the world.

Does being a Google Ambassador automatically make you an entrepreneur?

Yeah. At that point you get exposure that you never thought about. You see how people use technology to make a whole lot of money, and no matter how little you are you are encouraged to start your own business, because if you are working as a Google ambassador you get to meet many young entrepreneurs. So gradually, you are encouraged to be an entrepreneur.

Would you say that you had developed enough competence to have become a Google ambassador or becoming the Google ambassador was quite easy?

To an extent being a Google ambassador is easy but sustaining the ambassadorship isn’t as easy.  Like why should they have picked me as the Google star ambassador for Africa when we have over 98 ambassadors all over the world? So it all depends on hard work, sacrifice, creativity and your leadership skills. The ability to carry people along and the ability to do a lot of things makes you what you are. We have people, who were Google ambassadors for a year and did nothing, but mine was different because I worked hard and was creative enough. They saw my ideas and marveled, and they were like ‘wow! Someone in Nigeria is thinking up these ideas?’

Did you have any business venture or anything you were doing before you became the Google ambassador?

Really, I’ve always been a businessman. I.T is my passion and I’m into online marketing, using the internet as my advertising space. Presently, I’m thinking of doing some startups with a couple of my friends. I’m helping people startup too all over Africa and beyond.

When is your Google ambassadorship expiring?

My Google ambassadorship has expired already but my star ambassadorship still goes on for a year. I’m a mentor to other ambassadors. Right now, I have a new position- the Google map advocate for Nigeria, head of all the Google Digital Mappers all over Nigeria and so on. I lead a lot of teams in Nigeria, discussing at many events around the globe, this runs for a year too. But right now, I serve as a mentor to all of Africa.

In 5 to 10 years what will you be doing, will you still be with Google?

In 5 to 10 years, I’m sure I would have had one of the biggest companies in Nigeria and one of the biggest online advertising companies in Africa.

Using Google as leverage?

Yeah, maybe… because that’s what I have.

Very true. You use what you have to get what you want. So, do you have any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Let me start by saying the university has not really given us what we need and a lot of us have missed this from the start. A lot of us have worshipped books enough to make us mediocre. Normally, books should make us something else, but what books are turning us to in Nigeria is not what it used to be. So my advice to everyone is; no matter what you are doing, even as students follow your passion. It’s very important that you follow your passion as that will make way for you. Fine, it’s good to learn and read books but your passion is still the most important. The truth is that there are jobs and there are jobs, the best job is your own job not anyone’s job. Africa is an emerging market, everyone wants to invest here. The sad story is that so many foreigners are coming in to invest and we are not investing in Nigeria, or Africa. So we shouldn’t just watch while outsiders come in to invest. If we, as the future are not ready to stand up and be the future, then there is a problem somewhere. So work on your passion, follow your dreams. Adequate preparation is another key factor. When I applied, I knew close to nothing about Google but immediately I applied, I knew that my task was to read up all I could about Google, so there is nothing right now, within a year, that you’ll ask me about Google that I won’t be able to answer. So what I tell people is that everyone has opportunities, we just don’t see them. The first step is going on line to read blogs about what you are doing. What you are doing is not new, there are people who are doing the same thing and are sharing their experiences every day. So find blogs about what you do and read them. Make sure that what you are reading is about how you can do it better. Right now, one of the ways to succeed in this part of the world is climbing on someone’s shoulders. This doesn’t always mean you see these people face to face; all you might have of them is their blogs or their experiences in books.  It’s all about developing your passions consciously.

So you believe that Nigeria will be great again?

Yeah! Africa and Nigeria will rise again. I say it every day and everywhere I talk, Africa will rise again no matter the challenges we are facing. We all just have to make conscious effort at making it grow then it will. It might not be anytime soon but I believe that Africa and Nigeria will rise again.   

    

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The reality of an Entrepreneur.

You'll never make anything good and sustainable in one day. You'll start in unbelief. You'll be disrespected. You'll go broke for weeks, though most likely, months. You'll eat foods that will normally disgust you. You'll sleep in very uncomfortable places. You may not experience this much but you'll surely come across some.

Suddenly, you'll discover that you are beginning to know quite much, and then due to consistency, hard work, prayer, and other legits that work for you, unexpected invitations, calls, account alerts, e.t.c. just begin to stroll in in crescendo.

Through your phase of growth, when there was nothing to hold on to expect your vision and integrity, certain investments that you've made like some key friendships that you never undermined, the trust you never betrayed, the responsibilities that you took seriously, the woman, man or child you helped some way, the slap or punch or insult that you never returned all begin to pay back.

You'll suddenly discover that the Man you gave some money for his child's school fee some months back is a driver to the Company Manager that you've been dying to meet, and he just sets up an appointment for you.

Your car got faulty on your way to that crucial interview to get a life transforming endorsement. There are no cabs around to pick you up as you are almost getting late. No one in the world seems to be responding to your plight and unrest. Suddenly, the man that you never returned his slap is fast coming towards you on a bike. He immediately recognizes you. He's in full conviction that you are never a trouble maker. He sees your desperation to get on transit and then he picks you up and delivers you exactly at the venue of the endorsement, right on time.

Many are the travails of an entrepreneur. She's pregnant with a vision. She carries it for months. She tends, cares and sings to it. She walks gently, mostly staying away from familiar things - familiar foods, familiar friends, familiar many things.

However, it's never bad all day for the entrepreneur. In difficulty, she celebrates her intact vision.
She'll never abort this one. She's aborted so many before. Maybe if she had birthed the early ones, there'd be, at least, a child rendering a helping hand at this period of travail. She's learnt her lesson. "I'll surely deliver this one", that's her new dog head attitude. She's never missing a counseling session with her qualified doctors. She's duly following their prescriptions, and she calls their attention immediately she notices an unfamiliar experience.

She's fond of taking gifts, no matter how small, to her doctors; her unique way of appreciating their efforts. In return they thank her and give her adequate attention and patience.

Few months to go and she'll be delivered of a bouncing baby. No matter what she's gone through, everyone quickly forgets to celebrate the birthing of her baby. They'll all take turns to carry the baby.

Many are the travails of an entrepreneur, but in the end it seems like she's always lived with the Queen.



'seyiALBERT

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Interview with the Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Ibadan.

Professor Gbemisola Oke is the Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Ibadan. As regards series of event piling up towards the maiden edition of The Nigerian Campus Enterprise Challenge, holding fast at the University of Ibadan this month (September), we deemed it fit to hear from her.

What purpose does the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation serve?

The centre for entrepreneurship and innovation of the University of Ibadan is that coordinating body that enables students and staff entrepreneurial trainings and it cuts across the entire university.We are not limited to any Faculty or discipline, we take everybody within the university, we encourage and nurture entrepreneurs in this centre through training, courses and we are actually in the process of developing masters and PHD degree courses in Entrepreneurship.

How long has this centre been in existence?

The centre was established in 2002 though as a committee christened The Committee for University Private Sector Collaboration. The University realized that a University should not stand alone, they should occupy their positions as being able to influence the society positively, and if you look at a part of the mission statement of the University of Ibadan, it says ‘to be that body which enables and impacts positively, the society. That is what this centre is assisting the university to do.

Considering your background in medicine, how were you able to translate that into entrepreneurship and how have been able to take thiscentre to where it is presently?

I think the fact that somebody from the medical background would assume this position says a lot about what entrepreneurship is all about. Entrepreneurship is not discipline based, it’s an attitude, it is a way of doing things a better way. I have not found being the director of this place a challenge; it is just being like a second nature.

What can you say have been the challenges of the centre in the past two years?

I would say awareness is not as good as it ought to be. You said that many students are still not aware that thiscentre exists and for those who know a bit about the centre, they still don’t have a deep understanding of what we do and the extent at which we can carry them in becoming better and self-reliant.

How have you been able to tackle these challenges?

Well, we are still not there but we have increased our outreach and visibility in many ways, particularly encouraging the youth to take ownership of some of the programs like what Inceptum is doing as Part of our strategy. Otherwise, if it doesn’t fit into our strategy, we would not have encouraged it.

So far, what are the achievements of CEI and what are the plans for the immediate future?

I would say we are taking giant steps. Like I said we started from just a committee, a committee that was trying to sensitize the community, but from that point on we started from being able to float the ETR 301, a course available as an elective to every student, and it ends with a business plan which the university is determined and committed to funding.

We are also in the process of having higher degrees in entrepreneurship. Apart from that, and more significantly, is the impact that we have on our students in transforming them from mere students who think they qualify as graduates and are looking for employment to students who are actually competent for the real world. Right now, many of our students feel comfortable and confident to come in here and discuss their business ideas and we encourage them. We now also run courses that support businesses, we have business support services which we make open to our students as well as staff, we run free retirement programs, trainings to enable our staffs that are planning to retire to be better equipped to face retirement.

What kind of help does the centre render to student entrepreneurs?Is it in form of advisory, financial or in terms of putting them through the rudiment of what they are trying to do? Is the centre looking at running a first degree in entrepreneurship?

The Federal Government has given a directive that Universities should start first degrees in entrepreneurship; they have further given Universities the privilege of choosing to run the degrees at the Undergraduate and Postgraduate level.

The University of Ibadan as a Postgraduate institution therefore has opted to run the degrees at the Postgraduate level because for us, it’s about maintaining the prestige of producingentrepreneurship educators for other universities. Apart from the fact that if we make entrepreneurship an Undergraduate degree at this time, we stand the risk of graduating students with degree in entrepreneurship who will still go out and start looking for jobs.Secondly, we run trainings and our training for business is ‘the SET’ Sustainable Enterprise Training. It’s a training that spans over five weeks and it teaches all that a business owner would require running a good business successfully. We also get students who are affiliated with our centre to attend this training and we are planning to have the training soon.

In our future trainings we would make those students that are already in incubation to attend for free, it is part of the support, even though the training cost one hundred and fifty thousand naira. As part of the package for training, you are qualified to be recommended for certain business support loans, like those from the bank of Industry. We will provide opportunity for our students to also have investors look at their businesses and decide how much they want to invest in such businesses. Also, the university has set aside some money to support the students businesses.

Why did CEI decide to partner with inceptum services for the Nigeria Campus Entrepreneurship Challenge?

At the beginning of this year, this centre set out to do some sort of strategic plan for the centre and part of what it is set to do was to increase all the activities that would boost entrepreneurship activities on campus, part of which is to also improve awareness. We have worked withEmekaOssai before. When he brought ‘Wake Up and Smell the Coffee’, we were impressed with the way he handled the programme, the turn out and the impact it had on the students. We are very choosy and as such, despite the number of proposals coming in daily, we chose to partner with the inceptum services. EmekaOssai already has track records of good performance and credibility. Also, his proposal was well articulated and we observed that it will definitely add value to our operations in reaching out to the youth as well as empowering them.

As regards partnership, what role does CEI play?

CEI is a representative of the Universityand this is taking place on campus, so, it was on the recommendation of the CEI that the university signed the MoU to partner with the inceptum,otherwise, the University will not be involved. Also, I have been talking to the School Management, Principal Officers and all the stakeholders on campus, informing them about the programme, thereby, getting their support.

In this partnership with the inceptum services, what is the Critical Success Indicator for CEI and how do you measure the productivity of the partnership after the whole project?

We are working with Diamond FM to pitch a Radio show that will run through the competition and feed the public necessary information about the Enterprise Challenge. We’ll also have the school bulletin to publicize the event at regular intervals. We expect a large turnout, so we will be measuring our impact by the number of students that are in attendance. Our sponsors’ tent will be at the GamalielOnosode Park so we will see how much interest and visit we get and how much traffic is on the social media and the network.

Speaking with EmekaOssaiearlier, I told him that I see no reason why this cannot be serialised on National Television, he said it depends on the quality of the production and I think we have all it takes on the university campus, including our network to be able to do a good production that the sponsors will feel proud of buying airtime to be on the show. By the time all these are actualised, I believe everyone will realise the essence of entrepreneurship. This will enable us to accomplish very major target on our plan of operation for the year.

One basic challenge that students echo all the time is, it’s difficult to be a student and an entrepreneur at the same time, so, based on your experience with student and your experience as an entrepreneur, do you think it is impossible for student to combine education with business?

It is absolutely possible and it can even be easy. Students oftentalk to me about fantastic business ideas, some of which they have already started,so it is very possible.Also, i can attest from my own experience because I became an entrepreneur when I was a student on this campus and realising that it may be a bit challenging, CEI is here to make that process a lot easier. Citing an example from our students who started a business on animal rearing and are also studying veterinary medicine, the board of CEI thought ofliaising with the students’ supervisors such that the students’ project would be tied to their businesses, that way, they are focused while they accomplish two purposes; the business is growing and the project gets done well. Therefore, our arrangement is working with the same singular purpose of building students who are vast and deep in their field of study and research. It is the researchoutput that now gets translated to commercial outfit.

However, other colleagues from different part of the nation confuse skill acquisition with entrepreneurship, for instance, people write books on soap making, hairdressing and so on, these are skills anyone can acquire but we centre our entrepreneurship on intellectual property. That is, in whatever field you find yourself or you choose to study, you can develop in that field, get to the depth of research in that area and see how that can be translated to economic value and for societal growth. That is what the UI model is about.

Thank you.

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