By Okwo Kerry/Otto-Obong Clement
November each year, the Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) marks Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) in the three geo-political zones in the country through its Entrepreneurship Development Centers (EDC), having one located in each of the six geopolitical zones with Cross River housing that of the South-South.
This year, Cross River State was not left behind as it played host to the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Week in the South-South geo-political zone.
The one week program which ended recently began with a city awareness walk on the 4th of November 2015; Monday 16th, November 2015, was celebrating entrepreneurship; Wednesday 18th November, 2015 AgriPreneurs/Innovative thinking workshop and Friday 20th November, 2015 CEOs round table dinner.
The CBN-EDC Team Leader, Marketing Communications, Akpan Blessing while speaking reiterated that, the South-South Entrepreneur Development Center is set up by CBN to support the growth and development of entrepreneurs. She encouraged participants to develop entrepreneurial mind sets towards achieving this dream.
She added that this year’s theme “Sustainable Entrepreneur” is coined to give confidence to Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (SMSE) owners.
“We decided to end it with a CEO/Investors round table so that small and medium scale business can be funded to a higher level and to provide opportunity for them to interact and exchange contacts and ideas”, she maintained.
She concluded by appreciating God for protection towards the program, describing the event as a success because ‘participants have learnt a lot’.
A cross section of participants who spoke with our reporter lauded the event promising to put the knowledge they have obtained into practice.
The event featured cutting of cake and display of different works by the participants.