Emeka Christopher Ossai of Campus Labs is our #BellaNaijaMCM this Week!

It’s not longer news that Nigeria, and the world at large, needs a new type of education to prepare students with skills needed for 21st Century work.

Sadly, the country is lagging behind in this regard, but an enterprise development champion is contributing his quota to ensuring that university students get the necessary skills for the future.

Emeka Christopher Ossai, when he was lead entrepreneur at Inceptum, developed a project called the Nigerian Campus Enterprise Challenge, which has continued as a model in developing entrepreneurs through four editions with over 1,000 contestants.

Emeka has an ambitious goal, “to discover & nurture 1 MILLION student entrepreneurs across African campuses by 2020 by providing alternative educational models that will equip youths with 21st century skills”.

Emeka also runs Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, a thought leadership and hackathon event which he started in his final year at the University of Ibadan where he studied Theatre Arts. The event prepares Nigerian undergraduates with 21st-century skills.

Emeka is a 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow and as part of the fellowship, served as an Entrepreneur/Mentor in Residence at University of Ibadan’s Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship between June and December the following year.

In 2018, Emeka founded Campus Labs, “a social enterprise focused on building entrepreneurial communities on Nigerian campuses.”

Campus Labs sets up innovation spaces in partnership with universities to create an enabling environment for the emergence of student entrepreneurs and leaders. It also serves as a talent pipeline for organisations.

The platform also runs hackathons and entrepreneurial trainings.

We celebrate Emeka for his work in building the next generation of Nigeria’s entrepreneurs.