BENZEFT ENTEPRISE

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BENZEFT ENTEPRISE: Media/Entertainment, Leadership and Poverty Alleviation.

Yola, NigeriaYola, Nigeria
Year Founded:
2015
Organization type: 
for profit
Project Stage:
Start-Up
Budget: 
$1,000 - $10,000
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

BENZEFT enterprise consists of a football viewing/ computer games playing center that has a mini restaurant with a board games playing room attached. What we are going to sell is essentially services not products as we provide a space for people to relax, unwind and enjoy the most popular game.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if Adamawa is known differently, maybe as the Las Vegas of Nigeria instead of as the state ravaged by Boko Haram insurgents.?
About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

The project is addressing the problem of poverty plus decent work and economic growth. A lot of people's meager livelihood has been destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgency in the north eastern region of Nigeria with my state being one of the states that have been heavily affected. This project is our own way of contributing to the rebuilding process already going on.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

The solution we are currently working on and with has to do with first providing jobs to reduce unemployment and give the people a decent means of livelihood through our company which deals with environmental protection/sanitation, ICT services and media and entertainment.

Awards

The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program Award
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

As part of our corporate social responsibility, our company organizes free leadership lessons for young people and we have a forum where we discuss various topics and issues that affect us and the society.

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

We have been able to reach about 200 people with our leadership training and 90 percent of them are doing well today. We have been to a secondary school where we trained about 150 students and to a university where we trained about 40 staff of the institution.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

Our strategies have to do with expanding our business frontiers. The more we invest the profit we make, the more we can expand our frontiers and the more we can employ people and reach out to many who are close to where we are. We currently just have about 4 full time staff but we hope to employ about 26 more in the next 2 months. Each year as we expand, we hope to have about 30 full time staff for each branch so in five years we should have about 150 staff working full time.
Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

As we have stated, our organization is a for profit organization. We are currently into media/entertainment, ICT services and environmental protection. These are the areas where we generate our revenue. We hope to also go into sale of diamonds in the near future and agriculture.

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

There are only few individuals who are addressing these problems and the notable one among them is former vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar who has opened a university, a juice/water factory and a feed mill here in Adamawa. He is the only individual with investments in the state.
Team

Founding Story

This company became a reality when the Tony Elumelu foundation selected our business proposal as one of the 1,000 proposals to be given seed funding to start up out of the 20,000 applications the foundation received. This is our story.

Team

Benson Friday Ernest- CEO/ General Manager (Bachelor of Science, Diploma in project Management? - Full time Sini Yakubu- Business/ Marketing Manager (Bachelor of Science)- Full time Milanks Mako- Operations Manager (Diploma) Eunice Polycarp- Sales Executive (High School Certificate) We will employ more qualified professionals with time as we begin to expand.
Background
Please confirm how you heard about the Unilever Awards:

opportunities for africans.com

Please confirm your role in the initiative (eg Founder/co-Founder) and your organisational title:

Founder

Which of the 8 UN Global Goals (Sustainable Development Goals) pre-selected for this competition does your solution relate most closely to? [select all that apply]

No Poverty, Decent Work and Economic Growth.

Leadership and the Unilever Awards
Please provide examples of any previous entrepreneurial initiatives you have pioneered.

This is the first company I am starting. I have been trained by the British council Nigeria to be a leadership training facilitator/ community development facilitator

Beyond your existing team, who else are you working with to achieve your objectives, eg partners, advisors, mentors?

Members of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship program which includes Nwukabu Ahmadu, Kennedy Osagie, Esesua Adeyemi and a friend, Elijah Ajonye.

File attachments: 
PDF icon teep_cert.pdf