Seasons Greetings from Nigeria Startup Weekend (Africa)

Seasons Greetings

The Startup Weekend Crew would like to wish our alumni, mentors, speakers, judges, sponsors, and fans a happy holiday season spent with family and friends. We have had so much fun this year and have met hundreds of amazing entrepreneurs. Here's a brief look at some of our 2010 highlights:

• We received a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which will allow us to study the science of entrepreneurship


• We officially became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization!


• We held a global summit of our key facilitators in Kansas City, Missouri


• Our core team grew from two to nine full time employees


• We launched our first Global Startup Battle, which was so successful we're planning to on making it an annual event

We have an ambitious schedule planned for 2011. Our goal is to organize 130 events in just 12 months and we would love to see all of you at one of our events this year! To stay connected please

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Best of luck with all of your current and future startup endeavors! If you, your team, or your startup have also had an amazing year--let us know! Any Startup Weekend alums or ventures that are rocking their startup scenes, email us atsuccess@startupweekend.org.

We hope you have a peaceful and merry holiday season!

~ From Nigeria Startup Weekend (Africa)

Moving Nigeria Forward To The Next Level

~ By Roy Agiande

It is no longer news that the world has been hit by a severe financial crisis often compared to the Great Depression of the early 1930s and countless jobs have been lost worldwide due to this catastrophic phenomenon. It is scary to note that developed countries are shedding jobs, recording huge losses, cutting down on production cost and salaries. Worthy of note is the report that the UK has been hit by an unemployment figure of over 2.4 million which is the worst recorded over a decade. These are countries that have a well structured policy of job creation and backup policy to absorb the different fluctuations and shortcomings of the economy. I begin to wonder if there is hope for Nigeria, a less developed country where both the Private and Public sectors are all counting monumental losses, some banks are experiencing what you may call SYSTEMATIC FAILURE; where the Apex Bank has sacked the CEOs of major banks for gross insider abuse and the stock market experiencing a meltdown.

There are so many ways of helping the economy bounce back and diverse from its traditional mono-economic ways. One of which is to inject capital to the ailing and hungry sectors. Startup Weekend Nigeria is one of such avenues of doing just that. Fresh and radical business ideas proposed and funded from the scratch and new entrepreneurs are created. If you ask me, it’s like killing two birds with one stone. How?

By creating about 10 companies every Startup Weekend means new jobs would be created as well and the spin-offs could boost the economy, thereby complimenting the government’s efforts of job creation. Secondly, it’s also a way of capital injection to the cash strapped economy. Past minister of finance and present World Bank President, Dr (Mrs.) Ngozi Iweala once said:
“Create entrepreneurs, because it is a definite catalyst for job and wealth creation.”

It might interest you to know that some of the biggest businesses in the United States started as startups which eventually turned to multibillion dollar companies. Believe it or not, Nigeria is blessed with a large array of great thinkers and business minds which are going to be harvested and utilized to full capacity through Startup Weekends in Nigeria. It would also address the issue of the pool of unemployed graduates and those fresh from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Scheme.

Nigeria To Host the First Startup Weekend in West Africa!

If you are smart and with great ideas for innovations, you can be among the 250 people to be selected for the first ever Startup Weekend in West Africa this October in Lagos, Nigeria and it is free!54 hours of brain storming session with meals from Friday evening of October 2 to Sunday evening of October 4 and if your innovations make the top best startups, you can make it to the finals next Spring in the United States.You can register online on http://nigeria.startupweekend.org/

Nigeria: A New Beginning

Nigeria is starting to take a much more serious stance towards breaking from the issues of it's past. There is a very bright and talented pool of individuals equipped to make bold and impactful moves in today's tech business world. This event will bring the best and the brightest of Nigeria together for the first time to brainstorm on ideas and create new startups that will bring it's communities into success and abundance
~ http://nigeria.startupweekend.com/

Our faith is the greatest pillar of our strength on earth.

The level of your faith will determine the level of your strength to overcome all the temptations, trials and weaknesses of life and to achieve the zenith of success.


Startup Weekend Nigeria is part of the startups revolution of the successful Startup Weekend in America and our goal is to propel Nigerians into the dot-com bubble as dot-com companies did for America in the late 1990s when such awesome phenomenal startups like Amazon.com and eBay and others were launched and millions of new jobs were created.

Startup Weekend Nigeria will propel the dotcom boom that will fast-track the MDGs for the realization of the ultimate goals of our Vision 2020.

We invite you to join us today for the nation building of a New Nigeria in the leadership of Africa in the comity of nations.

http://nigeria.startupweekend.com/

Yours Faithfully,
Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
CEO, Startup Weekend Nigeria
The Publisher/Editor
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