University students should develop practical skills and test business ideas before graduating instead of relying solely on formal employment, Paradigm Initiative executive director Gbenga Sesan has said.
Sesan made the remarks on Tuesday at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo during the TENT GIG Zimbabwe programme, hosted by Paradigm Initiative under the theme “Building the Next Era: AI, Enterprise, and the African Developer”.
The programme seeks to equip students with entrepreneurial skills, encourage innovation and help them turn ideas into viable businesses.
Sesan said students should use their time at university to explore career opportunities, research business ideas, develop prototypes and test their innovations before graduation.
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“By year four, students should start testing their ideas. If you have an app you want to design, design it by year four and start testing it. Let students use it. Let your classmates or your friends use it. They must also prepare for the world of work,” he said.
He said graduates should be able to apply their skills in existing companies or establish businesses built around solutions they developed while studying.
“You would want to take that skill into a company to help them, because that way they’re not helping you really by giving you a job, you’re helping them. Or you want to start a business that does that thing, and it will build on what you already did on campus,” Sesan said.
He said TENT, which stands for Techie, Entrepreneurial, Networked and Talented, was a revised version of a gathering that began in 2010.
Paradigm Initiative partnerships and engagements officer Bridget Ndlovu said the programme brought university students together to strengthen their skills and expose them to business opportunities.
Students from engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, informatics, journalism and media studies were among those taking part.
Ndlovu said participants had submitted ideas for technology-based applications aimed at addressing challenges in their communities.
The programme included training in business growth, product marketing and ethical technology development, followed by presentations to a panel of judges.
Sesan said NUST was selected partly because of its existing partnership with Paradigm Initiative and its focus on science and technology.
“We have got a partnership with NUST, so it made things easier. Also because it is a University of Science and Technology. If anybody should talk about innovation, it’s NUST,” he said.
Paradigm Initiative is a Pan-African non-profit organisation that promotes digital inclusion and digital rights across Africa and other parts of the Global South. Sesan said the organisation operated in more than 30 countries and had offices in six countries, including Zimbabwe.
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