A team from Covenant University, Ota Ogun State have emerged the national champion of the 2020 Enactus Nigeria leadership and entrepreneurship challenge.
Covenant University team’s Pet City project an environmental sustainability social enterprise structured to systematically remove plastic waste and nylon from the environment by recycling them into construction materials was adjudged the best at the 2020 competition. It was also adjudged the best in the 2019 edition of the competition.
The team from Covenant University by emerging national champion will be representing Nigeria, and competing with 35 other national champion teams at the Enactus World Cup 2020 in Netherlands in September 2020.
This year, due to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Enactus Nigeria successfully transformed the annual national competition from an in-person event into an online and livestreaming event.
Mr. Michael Ajayi, country director, Enactus Nigeria while speaking about the transformation to online, stated that the organiser adopted the online method in response to the Covid-19 to reach more students and academic leaders, advance the goals of more partners, and work together to “build the new” rather than “fight the old.”
Mr. Ajayi noted that a total of eighteen (18) Enactus teams from across Nigerian tertiary institutions qualified to compete at the opening round of the first ever Enactus Nigeria online national competition, which held over a two-day period and over three stages.
According to him, eight (8) of the teams advanced to the semi-final round of competition, from where only four (4) teams from Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi; Covenant University, University of Port Harcourt and Federal Polytechnic, Idah advanced to the final round of competition.
He further said the event with the themed “Lead Change, Inspire Progress”, provided the opportunity to showcase the work the participating teams are doing in their local communities to lead change to address problems that affect people; empower people, businesses and communities to succeed and thrive.
It also provided the opportunity to challenge the students, and the general public, to be more involved, be a part of the solutions and lead enduring change in communities across the country.
Benjamin Dabrah, Partner ACA and Council Member, African Capital Alliance (ACAF) in his keynote address at the event lauded the Enactus operations in Nigeria and the Enactus teams for leading change and creating a better world through their social enterprises in response to our changing environment as orchestrated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Enactus Nigeria online national competition 2020 also featured the ACT Foundation Leadership Challenge – an ACT Foundation funded special programme that challenged Enactus students across the country to demonstrate leadership in their communities and help combat the COVID-19 Pandemic by creating innovative business solutions to that directly or indirectly address the challenges posed by the coronavirus.
