“When I was young, I had to learn the fundamentals of basketball. You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals.”- Michael Jordan

While growing up, I had held on to some beliefs that were not accurate and had hindered me from getting the best. For example, I believed that I didn’t  need to perform well in my academic to become valuable in life. This believe is true and not true. Being valuable in life is not tied to your academic but having the opportunity to study in school is an opportunity to become valuable in life, and to the society. Thank God that my believe changed in the University. 

The society, your fellow peers can affect one’s belief system. Our society play major role in our belief system and if a society is built on a wrong belief system, then the performance of each individual who has held on to such belief will be affected. Let’s see what makes up a belief system.

The fundamentals of believing simple means the basic facts that surround what one believes in. Life is made up of different believers, who held on to different belief systems through experience and analogies.

So, how do we get our fundamentals right?.

Identify and define Facts/ Assumptions that backup our believe.

A person who has gotten certain belief through analogy may not know if such belief is right or wrong if there is no proper finding to such beliefs.

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it”- Oscar Wilde

So when setting that goal, make sure you are going with the right belief system. Don’t set that goal based on assumptions; set it with the right fact. Examples of assumptions are “expect success and it will come”, “success happens overnight”, etc.

Know the fundamental principles guiding those believes.

Knowing the fundamentals guide you to know whether those beliefs are based on fact or assumptions. To understand the fundamentals guiding those beliefs, we have to question those beliefs we have gotten through experience or analogies.

Questioning those believe does not mean to doubt them. Questioning them help you to understand the fundamentals guiding those believe.

For example, a person that believes success happens overnight will have to ask some questions.

1. How does success happen overnight?
2. What are the factors that guarantee success overnight?

“If your believe are stressful and you question them, and you come to see they aren’t true – whereas prior to questioning, you absolutely believe them. How can you live in joy when you are believing thoughts that brings sadness, frustration, anger, alienation and loneliness?- Byron Katie

So don’t live your life on a wrong believe, live your life on a right believe with a strong conviction.

” The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has it own reason for existing – Albert Einstein.

Some weeks ago, I attended the 78^th Interdisciplinary Research Discourse of the Graduate College of Nigeria’s premier university: The University of Ibadan. The discourse was titled an approach to Research and Innovation in National Development: Entrepreneurship Culture in Nigerian Universities. This was delivered by Professor Adesoji A. Adesina, a former professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Wales Australia, winner of over US $15 million in competitive grants, a recipient of the Nigerian Order of Merit Award and currently the Founder/CEO of Atodatech LLC, at the end of the two hours discourse, he left no stone unturned.

At the sight of the notification of his presentation, the title attracted me that I quickly had to cancel a schedule so I could attend the discourse. Having walked the corridors of advocating for deliberate drive of entrepreneurship culture in various institutions of learning, the concept of driving entrepreneurship culture in the universities cannot be centered on “buying and selling books”, as this is a perception often held by a good number of persons in the universities. I will take side with the meaning of Entrepreneurship as contained in the EU 2011 Project Report of Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as Critical Success Factors, Entrepreneurship for a teacher lies in the ability of the individual to turn ideas into action. It includes creativity, innovation, showing initiative and risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives.

On the shelves of libraries of our universities are innovative and problem solving researches that are lying dormant. With a low gown-town impact, this could be tied to a number of valid reasons, ranging from funding, intellectual property theft, bureaucracy of patent acquisition and you just name it. The issue of dormant innovative researches is not from a point of speculation or assumption.  In July – December 2018, I was offered a Campus Ambassador role by Co-creation Hub to comb the Nigerian Universities for innovative researches. My role was a component of the African Universities Innovation Accelerator (AUIA) Project. As I interacted with academics and PhD candidates across different faculties, I was literally blown away by researches that have been conducted (albeit with low social impact) or currently ongoing in the domain of Engineering, Education, Science, Arts, Humanities and Business.  Listening to Professor Adesoji’s discourse increased my interest to work on projects and researches that will drive Entrepreneurship Education (EE) in Nigerian Universities down to our secondary and elementary schools.

Here are ten excerpts from Professor Adesoji’s lecture:

1. Sustainable development is controlled by Technology, Innovation, Management and Entrepreneurship.
2. National Science and Technology Policy to drive entrepreneurship as a basis for sustainable development.
3. Our research must be driven by national priorities, not just an exploratory replication, appraisal studies and re-inventing the wheel.
4. Our Universities must change her operating paradigm from Anglo-saxion, Hublodotian, and Napoleonic to an entrepreneurial model.
5. Formation of research clusters for resource and infrastructure optimization.
6. Sync research clusters for industry-university linkages.
7. A seed fund for younger/emerging researchers and reinvigorate established researchers.
8. At the turn of the knowledge economy, everyone in the domain engineering, science, arts, humanities and business must develop competency in Entrepreneurship Education (EE).
9. A rapid growth in the economy must be matched with a rise in in Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI).
10. Entrepreneurial Universities are needed as population grows, Nigeria is below optimum level in the current climate.

His concluding thoughts in one sentence:

“Entrepreneurship is the goal of research, innovation and societal transformation”.

At a cocktail dinner after the lecture, I walked up to Professor Adesoji to get his perspectives on driving this culture (competencies) to students at the undergraduate, secondary and elementary level; as his discourse focused on faculty members and emerging researchers ( candidates at Master, PhD and Post-docs levels). After my conversation, I thought along the following lines as articulated below.

With a rapidly rising unemployment index in Nigeria (36.50% Q3 2018), vis a vis poor employability skill set of graduates of tertiary institutions.  It is critical for Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education (FMOE) to implement a pragmatic national policy on Entrepreneurship Education (EE) that is visibly working within the walls of the schools and not just a policy document on the shelf or web links of its web page. The FMOE must as a matter of urgency institutionalize a workable teacher education training to drive entrepreneurship as visible in other climes. This should also be complemented by a more robust private sector, non-profit sector, bilateral and multi-lateral agencies entrepreneurship projects to stimulate interest in entrepreneurial competencies among students. The efforts of Junior Achievement Nigeria (JAN) in stimulating creativity, innovation, design thinking, problem solving and entrepreneurship development among school children is greatly acknowledged.