Tekedia is the winner of Velocity Mhagic $60,000 Prize
Tekedia Institute has won the Velocity Mhagic Grand Prize of $60,000. Mhagic Velocity, a talent competition, began with hundreds of people and groups. As we celebrate, Tekedia wants to congratulate other contestants who battled over 13 weeks for the remarkable program. And to our members and fans, thank you for taking us to the mountaintop.
All proceeds from this recognition will go to offer full Tekedia Mini-MBA scholarships to 430 in-need students.
Meanwhile, registration for the June edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA continues. To register and join us, click here.
“For the first time in this company, our audit came back “PERFECT”. Help me thank Yusuf Sanni of BUA Cement, Abel Osuji of Afreximbank and Akeem Rasaq of Chapel Hill Denham for saving Ezemba & Sons Onitsha Main Market.”
Thanks for making Tekedia Mini-MBA a school for builders, innovators and growth makers. We have built a school which traders like because they do not need to close shops to learn.
For two days, I joined the experts at Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers to learn about pension in Nigeria. As an employer, I have wanted to understand from the experts the whole nexus, while exploring if there are ways we can improve what we do, and offer in our companies. Also, with many startups in our portfolios, I wanted to become more knowledgeable in this domain of pensions and broad retirements.
Specifically, I wanted to understand how they can beat inflation and deliver real value, not just on absolute figures, but on time-value of money. As I listened during the sessions, they made a case that “Your retirement from work should not mean retirement from your aspirations.” Then, the 150-company history, on managing money, came through. It was an amazing two-day pension knowledge excursion. Like this photo shows, I like the company and is always in their midst!
Nigeria has advanced on its pension reforms with the transfer window introduction. With the lock gone, I expect quality service, technological innovation and cost efficiency to accelerate in the industry. I saw some elements of what is to come – and it looks promising. The redesign is massive, and I see an emerging Pentech (pension technology) on the horizon -Layo Ilori-Olaogun was superb on the pension digitization playbook. Great people in that company.
Yet, like I asked the Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers team, “I like your products and the technologies. But yet, any luck when startups would see some of the industry assets as investments?” Can the regulators ask for that?
“Much has been made recently of recent high profile roll outs in Africa as new ‘Continental HQs’ and how Nigeria, the highest country by GDP on the continent by some margin, has lost out. The first was the high profile loss of Twitter to Ghana, and now just announced, the loss of Amazon to South Africa. Does this mean the slide in global thinking is running away from Nigeria and it’s apex position as the ‘obvious go-to’ is no longer assumed?”
John Mc Keown begins with those lines on a piece examining the state of Nigeria, trying to answer if that “dominance” connotation is real or ofeke. Personally, I do not think it matters: Nigeria remains the king because we wear the biggest suits and shout loudest even though South Africa budgets close to $100 billion more, despite having less than 30% of our population.
Nigeria is dominant and that position is unchallenged despite the paralysis. If Lagos is a country, it would have all these HQs by itself. But Nigeria diminishes it! Twitter is not a big deal; its products are not that catalytic. I am waiting for who will host Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc design centers in Africa! We need more than sales offices.
I do not know what they do in Amsterdam except that they have a good airport. But last I checked, I am not aware of anything pioneering Amsterdam has given the world in the last 50 years except helping companies to hide taxes! So, when that region said it would not accept “African bachelor’s degree” for its yeye master’s degree, I laughed. Let me tell Amsterdam Business School, the world has moved on.
The School of Business in Amsterdam University, Netherlands, has come under criticism for “devaluing” bachelor degrees from Africa, apart from South Africa and Ghana.
The school recently said a Bachelor’s degree from an African country “is not enough to secure admissions for its Master’s degree programme”.
For eligibility, applicants with an African bachelor’s degree (except for South-Africa and Ghana) will need a bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in the field of economics and business, an information on its web page read.
“Information for students with an African bachelor’s degree. An African bachelor’s degree is generally the equivalent of 2 years of academic education in the Netherlands.”
One of my four PhD thesis co-advisors in Johns Hopkins University, Prof Jim West (happy 90th birthday Prof), did not finish any college. Yes, he has no degree but without him, there may not be a smartphone because he invented the core element used in the microphone of modern smartphones. There are many like him in top US universities; they have no degrees but they graduate PhDs!
ABS – the world has moved beyond papers; find a better way to evaluate students. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, etc admit dozens of Nigerian students yearly, and to think those students are not qualified to attend your school simply means you have lost your mission.
“I would be hesitant to comment on the individual strategy of a particular university. “ – unfortunately, it has no strategy. It wants to admit a continent instead of a student. This age is about evaluating people, and not a continent. ABS is not evaluating the students but the continent from a myopic angle. To tell a University of Ibadan First Class grad who typically will have Oxford scholarship that he cannot apply to ABS is pure lack of awareness for ABS. There are international tests, use them and select the best.
