AKIIPOC CHAIR INTEGRATES YouWiN INTO INDUSTRIALIZATION THINK TANK

By Alison Peters
The Chairman of the Akwa Ibom Investment and Industrial Promotion Council (AKIIPOC) and S. A. to Chief Godswill Akpabio on Investment and Industrialization Dr. Senas Ukpana on Friday February 3, 2012 formally incorporated key leaders of the Akwa Ibom State contingent of the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN) into the state industrialization think tank designated the “Akwa Ibom Entrepreneurs Forum”.
The think tank, according to Dr. Ukpana, was constituted to serve as an institutionalized pool of entrepreneurial/industrial knowledge base, which the agency (AKIIPOC) and the State Government can tap from and also deploy to achieve specific goals, regarding the pursuance and actualization of the current state industrialization agenda of the present administration.
These and many more were made known as part of the round table meeting which AKIIPOC held in its conference room the said Friday, February 3, 2012 with the Akwa Ibom State Organized Private Sector (OPS).
The Akwa Ibom State contingent of the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN) are industry-oriented youths trained in the fundamentals of Enterprise Development and Management, under the auspices of the Federal Government in partnership with the World Bank and the Pan African University, Lagos. Each member of the YouWiN group also boasts of an expert/pragmatic business proposal or plan on a specific entrepreneurial project to be executed locally, ranging from manufacturing, through packaging and ICT, to Agriculture, which formed part of the requirement for qualification and participation in the YouWiN scheme.
According to documents made available to Insight Newspapers at the industrial round table meet, a cardinal industrial development objective of the agency and state government was to harness the natural resources and endowments in Akwa Ibom State, including its vibrant population which provides both the labor pool and local market for products consumption. Part of the objectives also included the establishment of an industrial fund to provide soft loans for local entrepreneurs.
In the area of entrepreneurial training, as a core requirement for successful industrial execution, the meeting emphasized the need for lower and middle cadre of trained manpower for the impartation and attainment of practical knowledge and skills needed to execute day-to-day operations of all proposed industries. The forum drew attention to SMEDAN, Entrepreneurial Development Centre of the new Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU), and also to designated banks, as establishments where such trainings could be sought and received. In this regard, the round table meet also stressed on the need to resuscitate and properly fund moribund polytechnics, technical and vocational colleges in the state, for the inculcation of practical skills in entrepreneurs and the people in general.
Other areas indicated by the forum to be urgently addressed included the menace of poor energy/power supply, insecurity, and the overwhelming imperative to stem politicization of all activities and operations relating to the implementation of the state industrialization scheme, to guarantee optimum results.
The AKIIPOC Chairman, Dr. Ukpana thanked the participants at the forum and their respective groups for their sincere contributions towards achieving successful actualization of the state government’s industrialization agenda. He requested them to be available whenever their presence and further contributions were needed.
Other groups in the state aside from the YouWiN represented at the investment/industrial round-table included the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Technology Incubation Centre (TIC), Uyo; Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA); Nigerian Association of Women Entrepreneurs (NAWE), National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), and the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME).