TheCable

BY SAMUEL ADEBAYO

For Rotimi Bankole, CEO of SBI Media Group and founder of the new SBI Media Workshops,“It is not enough to only itemize and worry about society’s challenges; our task is to see how we can help reduce or remove those challenges.”

In this case, Bankole is the talking about the unabating unemployment problem in Nigeria. It is reported that one in every two Nigerians in the country’s labour force is either unemployed or underemployed. In 2012 Nigeria’s population was about 167 Million, and the youth unemployment rate (15-34 years) was 11 Million (about 6.6%). Now, with a population of about 200 Million, Nigeria’s unemployment rate as at Q2 2020 has risen to 27.1% (up from 23.1% in Q3 2018).

Bankole, 40, recalls his journey as a young entrepreneur and is inspired by his experience to help usher in the future of the marketing and creative industry in Nigeria. Through the SBI Media Workshop, he and his partners are investing in equipping young individuals to identify and leverage opportunities in the media sector.

“It was no walk in the park to start SBI Media seven years ago,” Bankole says. “And with the benefit of hindsight, I reckon I can help make the journey easier for those coming after me.”

One proven way of tackling youth unemployment is through masterclasses.Top industry professionals make their knowledge available to a new generation to remove the trial and error that often plagues the upstarts. Workshops also offer an immediate opportunity to test new ideas in real time, as trainees benefit from diverse opinions that make for a well-rounded learning experience.

The SBI Media Workshop, which is offered at no cost to participants, intends to be that series of masterclasses where young Nigerian content creators can rapidly acquire the skills needed to not only turn the nearest digital equipment—mobile phones, tablets, laptops—into content creation, but also monetise such content.

Bankole believes the concept of the SBI Media Workshop will be right on the money, particularly because the developing markets such as Nigeria have been projected to see the most rapid revenue growth rates in the world over the next five years.

Aside from plugging into the severally expressed but significantly untapped potential of the creative industry in Nigeria, the workshop has also been hugely informed by the huge shift occurring in the marketing industry. Today,the market, for reasons of budget, creativity, speed, and democratisation of platforms, now favours small creators, offering them an advantage that can only get bigger with time.

However, without an entrepreneurial mindset and training, these opportunities are easy to miss, says Bankole. “This workshop will help these young individuals navigate, with ease, the distance between ideation and profitability,” he declares.

As such, the programme, according to SBI Media Group, will consist of training courses where the participants work individually and in groups.

The SBI Media Workshop’s mission is to discover, develop and enable young media entrepreneurs. One of the ways to immediately equip the workshop’s alumni will be through a cash grant of N200,000 which will be presented to some of the participants with the most viable ideas.This is aside from introducing them make connections with fellow participants and established players in the digital media and creative business.

The overall ambition behind SBI Media Workshops is to identify interest and potential to explore possibilities in the media sector and equip them with the resources and empowerment to succeed in the sector. This workshop is about fostering enterprise and introducing participants to new models and methods of working in the media sector, as well as supporting young people to develop sustainable livelihoods in the creative and media industries.

Bankole states that his team has signed on a crop of the most enterprising new media entrepreneurs and creatives to lead the sessions. “The are excited to take participants on an exploratory and practical journey into the various ways by which a solo creator, or even a group of creators, could launch and sustain a profitable media business in this decade,” he says. “We also hope that our trainees will pay it forward; they will employ and train others as well.”

With a teeming youth population requiring immediate attention to address a dire unemployment situation, Bankole submits that all hands must be on deck to ensure Nigeria pushes back against poverty and provide economic opportunities for young Nigerians to attain financial and career freedom.

With his eyes already set on expanding the workshop and trainings and exporting it to other parts of Africa and the world, the goal, Bankole says, “is to make this as big as we can.”

Young Nigerians aged between 18 and 35 from all over the country are eligible to apply on the website, www.sbimediaworkshop.com. The only requirement, he advises, is that each applicant articulates clearly why they should be selected.