No fewer than 300 youths and women with innovative ideas in fashion, arts and craft are participating in a Talent Hunt Competition in Kaduna.
The competition is organised by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to identify and sponsor young men and women entrepreneurs in fashion and the arts.
Nationaltrail reports that the participants, drawn from four states, including Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Gombe and Kaduna, are competing in fashion, arts and crafts.
The hunt has the theme: “Breaking Convention, Sparking Innovation.“
The Director-General of the SMEDAN, Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda, said the programme was designed to discover hidden talents and showcase innovative talents in fashion, arts and craft to boost the economy.
Radda said that the hunt was expected to provide an avenue for wealth creation and self-reliance, thereby reducing poverty among youths in the country.
“It is a complete hand-holding programme from identification, selection, to start-up with enterprise support opportunity and facilitating necessary linkages and visibility.
“We partnered with We Innovation Hub on the provision of Business Development Services for all the finalists.
“ Arts and Craft will be identified and supported with financial assistance and technical support through entrepreneurship training, “ he said.
He said that the selected participants would present their ideas to the panel of judges for evaluation and subsequent selection of the best 10.
“The best 10 ideas will be empowered through further capacity development, linkages and visibility via e-marketing,“ Radda said.
According to him, the innovators who emerge first, second and third positions among the best 10 in each location will be further empowered financially and technically.
“Because the creative economy is a key component of the modern post-industrial knowledge-based economies, the agency is collaborating with the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC).
“The Agency is partnering with State Governments to select an entrepreneur per location out of several applicants that responded to our call for status update, “he said.
The SMEDAN boss said that there was huge market for wearing apparel – Fashion, Arts/Craft through the AGOA export window and other international markets.
He, however, lamented that Nigeria was yet to tap those markets due to the nation’s inability to meet the standard and specifications of the international markets.
He said smaller countries like Ghana, Mauritius and Lesotho were already benefiting hugely from the markets.
Gov. Nasiru El-Rufai said the idea of the hunt could not have come at a better time, when the government was looking at ways to improve and expand the development of the state’s economy and revenue drive.
El-Rufai, who was represented by the Commissioner for Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Ruth Alkali, assured of the state government’s commitment to partner with agencies like SMEDAN.
He said such collaboration would enable government to come up with more ways of creating employment opportunities for youths through skills acquisition programmes that would make them self-reliant and reduce poverty.
He commended the agency for the initiative, which he, said would contribute to the development of the economy of the state.
The governor urged the participants to take advantage of the opportunity to develop and harness their skills to their best abilities by working hard to ensure that they become successful and self- reliant.
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