Bloggers in Nigeria LOG-iN for empowerment project

The LOG-iN Blogging Enterprise project is a trademark of Logos Audibles, a content development and publishing support services company in Abuja, Nigeria. Popularly known to have developed and edited scripts for lots of people and organisations since 2010, Logos Audibles launched the LOG-iN project to empower a segment of Nigeria's internet savvy young population.

 Since the debut of the 2-day LOG-iN Intending Bloggers workshops for individuals drawn from different societal sectors to the quarterly held LOG-iN Bloggers Master Class for already-bloggers, LOG-iN has evolved as a foremost blogging potential advocacy and training network in Nigeria. 

"We believe that more entrepreneurs will get their businesses online faster by owning a blog and we can have blogs with select niche as well as groom bloggers who will decide to be full time blogpreneurs thereby reducing unemployment at least for the literate and upwardly mobile" the blog author at www.jennychisom.com said as a response to 'why LOG-iN'?. With the LOG-iN team flagging off the Calabar enterprise sessions in mid-september 2013, two more cities expected to catch the LOG-iN blogging fever are Aba, in Abia and Enugu. Having made headline news as "why we are promoting blogging in FCT" in the mid-August edition of the Abuja Inquirer newspapers, LOG-iN has become a phenomenon in Abuja, Nigeria. 

Live blogger-facilitators that has been part of this project since its debut on June 22, 2013 are Ezekwesili Nnam(www.ideapolice.blogspot.com), Ekka Egbuna (www.venussbay.blogspot.com), Rex Tonye Idaminabo (www.africanviewpointjournal.blogspot.com) who are partners with the project. 

The LOG-iN bloggers in grooming cut across Fashion, Industrial cleaning, Leadership, Motivationals, Agro-production, Pharmacy/health, Event Management, Entrepreneurship, Relationship as well as Political sectors creating a robust LOG-iN Bloggers Network. 

The LOG-iN after-class support is amazing, giving members of the network an assurance of quality. The LOG-iN blogging project is an attempt to engage the teeming Nigerian youth towards competing favourably with the world as it 'dawns' ICT.

 Blogging is a double honours sort of career as it affords for an ICT-Media converge that dovetails into Advertising, Writing, Research and more.

Tilahun Alemu makes forbes list with her eco-entrepreneurship

Ethiopian eco-entrepreneur Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu has created the world’s first certified-fair-trade footwear company, founded on the vision of creating jobs and sustainable prosperity in her country.

 “SoleRebels is proud to be the planet’s fastest-growing African footwear brand and the very first global footwear brand ever to emerge from a developing nation,” Alemu tells newstimeafrica.com. “It is living proof that creating innovative world-class brands is the best road to greater shared prosperity for developing economies like Ethiopia.”

Alemu was born and raised in a small impoverished community in Addis-Ababa, and completed a diploma in accountancy at Ethiopia’s Unity University. “SoleRebels began in 2004 as an idea: to bring jobs to our community, where there literally were none,” she tells seeafricadifferently.com. “We grew up watching our families and neighbours, people we knew had great talent and aspirations, struggling. So we decided to create the ‘better life’ we were all waiting for by harnessing our community’s incredible artisan skills and channelling them into a sustainable business.”

SoleRebels manufactures hand-crafted shoes from recycled tyres and locally-sourced natural fibres, based on ancient traditional styles with subtle undertones of modern Western design influences. “Our sandals and shoes are lined with fabric produced from organic cotton, which we hand-spin and loom. I really love sharing Ethiopia’s artisan heritages with the world and combining our cultural products with modern design sensibilities,” Alemu tells howwemadeitinafrica.com. “Our business model centres on eco-sensibility and community empowerment, maximising local development by creating a vibrant local supply chain while producing world-class footwear.” 

The innovative range of shoes, boots, and sandals is sold through the soleRebels website and other e-commerce sites like Amazon, as well as in retail outlets in fifty-five countries around the world. A soleRebels signature store opened in central Addis Ababa in 2012, and the second retail outlet in Taiwan is set to open this year. Alemu aims to open thirty more franchise stores by 2016, in the US, Australia, Italy, and Japan. Annual revenue is expected to reach twenty million dollars by 2015.

“We have created world-class jobs, a world-class company and brand, while empowering our community and country,” says Alemu. “We have done this while simultaneously presenting a galvanised, dynamic face of African creativity to the global market. These actions, I believe, have forever shifted the discourse on African development from one of poverty-alleviation orchestrated by external factors, to one about prosperity-creation driven by local Africans maximising their talents and resources. I am passionate that our model should not simply forever end aid dependency but will allow Africa to compete in the global marketplace of ideas on our own terms, and at full value for those ideas. Once we do that, the images associated with Africa will be forever changed in a way that is real and meaningful and tangible.”

Given her own success in bringing her dream to reality, what advice would she give to fellow entrepreneurs? “Have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and the path to get there. Then work hard, and then work extra hard. Seek advice and counsel from diverse places – don’t just stick to one ‘voice’ or source for input,” Alemu says. “And never ever be deterred, no matter the obstacle or the setback. Setbacks and obstacles are a natural part of life. It’s how you overcome them that will make you a great person no matter what endeavour you choose to devote yourself to.”

At the end of the day, says this proudly-African entrepreneur, the best route to success is performance. Her own is certainly notable.

Culled from Emerging Stars

Photos from Here and Here 

Sim Shagaya wins our heart by breaking limitations in Nigeria

Nigerian entrepreneur Sim Shagaya is running two hugely successful e-commerce sites – in a country which is notorious for high internet costs, low connectivity, and constant online scams.

Expected to be the world’s most populous nation by 2050, Nigeria has a growing middle-class and a thriving consumer sector. However, corresponding internet growth has been hindered by poor infrastructure and, possibly even more damagingly, by the country’s reputation for online scams. Many international online companies don’t allow Nigerian access to their sites, and PayPal refuses to operate there. So e-commerce entrepreneurs like Shagaya have to find creative ways around the challenges.

In Shagaya’s case, when customers place their orders online, he sends out an employee on a motorbike or a tuk-tuk to collect their payments. Shagaya’s two sites – Konga.com, which is an online retail store, and DealDey.com, a daily deal website like Groupon – are growing rapidly despite the challenges.

“In this country, we have a potentially massive market and one that will be, by definition, mobile,” Shagaya tells webtrednsng.com. “The internet will be almost purely mobile in nature in Nigeria; this creates huge opportunities that cannot be ignored.”

With a lifelong passionate interest in technology, Shagaya started five previous online ventures in Nigeria, none of which led to longterm success. “I think a big part of it is getting the timing right,” he tells otekbits.com.

Njeri Rionge is a Kenyan passionate serial entrepreneur we celebrate

Kenyan serial entrepreneur Njeri Rionge believes that Africa is the next economic frontier, and is passionate about contributing to the continent reaching its full potential.

 Rionge’s first business venture, when she was nineteen years old, was the sale of yoghurt at local schools. Next she worked as a hairdresser, buying and selling luxury imported clothing at the same time. “I touched many things before I touched the thing that turned to gold,” she tells bbc.co.uk.

The thing that turned to gold for Rionge was Wananchi Online, which she founded in Kenya in 2000 as East Africa’s first mass-market internet service provider with the aim of making internet connectivity affordable for all. “Our industry is probably one of the few mediums that can actually bridge the gap between the poor and the rich in our economy,” Rionge tells afrimind.org. Now known as Wananchi Group, the venture is today the region’s leading cable, broadband, and internet-based telephony company, worth nearly two hundred million dollars.

Rionge believes that the vocational courses she has completed have provided her with a wide range of skills, resourcefulness, and versatility. “If you ask me to do a business plan I can do it; if you ask me to be a systems administrator for the technological back-end of my business infrastructure, I will do that,” she says. “And if you ask me to be the creative person, I will do that too.”

Next she launched business consultancy Ignite, which expanded into health care with Ignite Lifestyle, and into digital marketing with Insite. “I build organisations and then hand them over to a CEO or managing director to run – that is my type of entrepreneurship

Kenya’s leading start-up incubator, Business Lounge, is another of Rionge’s initiatives, and the one through which she provides a space for other entrepreneurs to bring ideas, brainstorm, network, find funding, and develop their ideas into thriving businesses . Vision and implementation, she believes, are basic to growing a culture of sustainable entrepreneurship. “Taking an idea that’s on paper or in your head and moving it forward into real, tangible action is the true spirit of entrepreneurship,” she says. “And entrepreneurship is what is going to build Africa.”

Africa, she says, is the next economic frontier. “There is huge potential in Africa,” she tells howwemadeitinafrica.com. “Let’s create a work culture; let’s have integrity in our processes; let’s be passionate about doing it right the first time, and Africa will enjoy the fruits of our labour.”

Like all entrepreneurs, Rionge has had challenges to overcome along the way, but believes it’s important not to place too much focus on problems. “I have no time to think about challenges,” she says. “When they come I try to solve them quickly and get over it. Because I convert them, they stop being challenges. I have been at many points where the cookie was about to crumble, but my focus was that it cannot crumble, and therefore I concentrate on upwards and onwards.”

And what advice would she give aspiring entrepreneurs? “It’s like learning to ride a bike or driving a car,” Rionge tells forbes.com. “You need to believe in yourself, trust your gut feeling, and develop a clear plan or strategy. Keep it simple, and implement that plan step-by-step with courage, conviction, and love above all. Be open-minded and flexible to change course when needed, and listen to your customers.”

This proudly-African innovator is an inspiring role model for entrepreneurs everywhere.    

Culled from Emerging Stars                                    

Photo source: Here and Here

We produce Beeberry honey

Distinction Minds Limited hosts blog towards raising Youth Entrepreneurs as a Socio Economic Empowerment for the Development of Nigeria

Distinction Minds Blog is a copyright of Distinction Minds Limited in Nigeria. It is a company registered in 2004 as a limited liability company with operations as an Agro product packaging company passionately focused on processing and packaging of Nigerian grown crops to International standards for economic development. 

The company also engages in business development, idea investment appraisals/consultancy, training and events management.

Within few years of operations which started absolutely as trial and error, we are proud today to have our brands regularly on breakfast, lunch and dinner tables in most top hotels in the Federal Capital territory with further expansion efforts being made by the management to expand so as to meet current market demand. 

Distinction Minds is committed to raising Youth Entrepreneurs as a Socio Economic Empowerment for the development of the country.

The company’s Management is led by the CEO/MD, Mrs Victoria Ironbar, a visionary diligent and dedicated   entrepreneur, a goal getter and potential  role model to her generation.