By Odey Ojeka
The ability to reason creatively and solve a need in the society as well as deploying the internet to reduce the cost of labor will create a wealthy generation, CrossRiverWatch and VoguePay founders, Agba Jalingo and Leke Ojikutu advised youths at the 3rd Cross River Central Youths Meet Senator John Owan-Enoh event held Friday at Ikom.
“There must be a problem you have identified that you need to solve in the society” Agba said, adding that; “Create a solution and put it on the internet and push the world to see it and patronize it.”
For Leke, the ICT entrepreneur must be able to plan his or her career and not get stuck since innovation drives wealth.
“I started with selling recharge cards and moved to own a computer school, but, I knew that was not what I wanted as the bigger picture which I was looking at,” Leke said and charged the youths to make use of the opportunities offered them by Senator Owan Enoh.
The duo encouraged the youths to reduce the idle time they spend online and deploy it into profiting from the limitless opportunities that the internet affords and also appealed to Senator Owan Enoh to engage with other relevant stakeholders in the country to improve internet penetration and accessibility in Central Cross River state and allow the youths to tap into that and create wealth for themselves.
The program was attended by youths from the 6 local government areas of central Cross River State with Senator Enoh saying that the event was part of his resolve to empower youths in his constituency to meet up with the challenges of the 21st century and make them compete favorably with their colleagues the world over.
The two speakers recounted their personal experiences while growing up their respective businesses and charged attendees to commit themselves only to businesses that they are passionate about.
Earlier, the Special Adviser to Senator Enoh on new media queried why the youths were not thinking how to make money from the comfort of their homes and advised them to look inward.
“Senator John Owan Enoh is saying: You can become the Next Mark Zuckerberg,” Gauis said.
He continued; “Cross River Central is blessed with arable farm land, natural resources and tourist sites, you can create something big using your mobile phone. Before I started working with Senator John Owan Enoh I was designing websites for people and I was making modest income through other online marketing platforms and when the Senator saw a need to employ me based on what I can do in ICT today I am with him at the National Assembly doing what I learnt not in school but from the street.”
