By Sahr Ibrahim Komba
232news
The Sierra Leone Economic Diversification Project (SLEDP) has empowered students from three universities in Sierra Leone with entrepreneurship skills.
At a colorful events to climax the month’s entrepreneurship skills on Tuesday 13th December, 2022 at Limkokwing University.
The three universities namely: Limkokwing University, University of Makeni (Unimak) and Milton Margai University.
LUCT Innovation Hub Coordinator, Bashri Muhammad Idris said SLEDP project looks at developing entrepreneurship capacity of Universities in Sierra Leone, aims at enhancing domestic and international investment and increased revenue from non –mining sector.
SLEDP is designed to support the growth of Small Minimum Enterprises (SMEs) with the project title Sierra Leone Economic Diversification Project: developing entrepreneurship culture within tertiary institutions in Sierra Leone.
According to Idris, many students cannot get jobs after university because they lack entrepreneurship skills, adding that it has affected many university graduates in Sierra Leone, noting that Sierra Leone needs economic growth diversification.
Idris, disclosed further that the World Bank is sponsoring the project under the ministry of finance.
He further added that the project had three activities that were implemented in the three Universities. The first activity was training the trainers which was designed by SLEDP. He said that the trainers were trained by CTI Consulting Company in order to give them knowledge on entrepreneurship economic delivery. The program started in September and ended in October 2022.
In order to implement this project, SLEDA had to organize and design certain activities which provide students the platform to showcase their talents.
CTI Consulting Company trained thirteen staff from each university and the training focused on entrepreneurship curriculum delivery and syllabus. These lecturers were trained on how to deliver a more contextualized syllabus on entrepreneurship in order to improve the way they teach the modules in Universities.
He added that their second activity was the Hackathon which was purely for the IT students to come up with software solutions. He added that these students were given real-life challenges that are facing different in the world and they were tasked to come up with ideas on how to solve those challenges. The University organized a hackathon for all the universities in Sierra Leone and Limkokwimg won the first and second price. Thirty thousand new Leones for the first price and twenty thousand new Leones for the second and ten thousand new Leones for the third person.
The last activity was the Pitch Night. This was organized for entrepreneurship students or any students who had a business idea. The idea behind this was to encourage students to engage in entrepreneurship program and to come up with business ideas. Students presented business ideas in front of experts from different background. Participants presented their business ideas and the judges evaluated them on December 6th 2022.Limkokwing student emerged as the winner.
They signed a memorandum of understanding under the Ministry of Finance in October 2022.The Project was advertised for universities to apply and three universities –University of Makeni, Milton Margai College and Limkokwing University were selected in March 2022 and later signed an agreement in October 2022.
He further said that the project is a pilot project sponsored by the World Bank under SLEDP supervised by the Ministry of Finance to implement the project.
He also said that they have finished the activities for this year and the impact was great, adding that the project has helped students to develop business ideas and to also engage in entrepreneurship activities. Students also developed new technologies and ideas to address existing challenges in developing countries, he added.
The project has helped them meet with experts from different disciplines and has helped them develop good business ideas. He concluded that the project helped them on how to use technology to solve socio-economic challenges in the world.
Below is the list of the LUCT 2022 Hackathon winners:
First Place: Link Tech
1. Toma Sheku Tennyson Kuyateh
2. Abu Theodore Maxwell Rogers
3. Alhaji Abubakarr Barrie
4. Mohamed Juldeh Barrie
5. Sahr Manga
6. Koigoh Samah
Second Place: Sierra Technologies
1. Emmanuel Kamanda
2. Khadija Kallissera Jalloh
3. Abdul Rahim Jalloh
Third Place: Smart Tech
1. Umar Bolokada Mansaray
2. Mohamed Alpha
3. Tayyib Gbondo
4. Mawulia Mansaray
5. Henretter P Haruna
FIRST PITCH NIGHT (23rd NOVEMBER 2022)
Winner
Instant Cassava Fufu Flour
Aminata Baddi Kabbasorie Suma
Second Place
The Way Out Sierra Leone
Abdulai Conteh
Third Place
Leoncentric Lifestyle
Bernadette Kemokai and Rugiatu Sesay
SECOND PITCH (6th December 2022)
Winner
Chocco Collection
Memunatu Bah
Second Place
Mina’s Thread (fashion design)
Aminata Kamara
Third Place
Zay Aye Enterprises
Zainab Bah
