The Director, Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of Pan-Atlantic University, Dr Nneka Okekearu has described the country’s creative industry as the new goldmine, with a capacity and potential to solve Nigeria’s perennial unemployment crisis, if well-positioned.
Dr Okekearu stated this during the Creative Business Summit at the 2024 Global Entrepreneurship Week, tagged: “The Future Creative Work Adapting to New Norms”, held in Lagos, recently.
At the summit, hosted by EDC, in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, Okekearu, highlighted the importance of creative business to the economy and its contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
According to her, “The creative industry is a huge sector and it is the new gold. The creative business, if you put it into segments, take fashion as an example and look at the value chain, you will see that there is so much that can be done.
“The creative industry has different segments and those segments have various value chains. Therefore, if we go through the value chain approach, we will see that jobs can be created and work can also be created.”
On the challenges confronting the sector, Okekearu identified lack of capacity and paucity of talents, noting that a lot of startups in the sector do not have the capacity to function effectively.
She argued that besides possessing the talent, a start-up desirous of making an impact in the industry must also know the business side of the creative.
On the way forward, Okekearu urged stakeholders in the sector to embrace what the Centre is doing to assist startups in the industry.
One of the highlights of the summit was the announcement of FriendnPal as the winner of the Creative Business Cup Nigeria in 2024, with a N1 million seed grant.
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