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After several weeks of educational programme and coaching trajectory to improve entrepreneurial skills, 12 students representing Netherlands and 12 students from Nigeria will have a final pitch at the Dutch Nigerian Student Business Challenge, which will hold in Lagos.

The Dutch-Nigerian Student Business Challenge (DNSBC) is an initiative spearheaded by Dutch Embassy in Nigeria, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in partnership with Passion Incubator, one of the leading incubation companies in Nigeria.

The essence of the Dutch-Nigerian Student Business Challenge is to address challenges in Nigeria’s health, energy and food sectors with an innovative and entrepreneurial approach.

Passion Incubator, Co-founder, Olufunbi Falayi confirmed that the students from Netherlands will arrive Lagos for the final contest, adding that the teams have been offered weeks of educational programme and coaching trajectory (both on- and offline) to improve the entrepreneurial skills of the students to help them to come up with concrete business solutions.

He said the program kicked off with a start week in the Netherlands in September, contained a long-distance co-creation period of 6 weeks and rounds off with a final week in Lagos, Nigeria in October 2017 (23rd-27th).

“Students will present their final business solutions at the University of Lagos where the DNSBC will hold to the companies involved who will decide which solutions are most likely to best solve their problems”.

Some of the key industry stakeholders who will grace the event include amongst others Michel Deleen, Acting Dutch Ambassador to Nigeria, Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti, Commissioner for Wealth Creation, Obafela Bank-Olemoh, Special Adviser, Education, Lagos State and the Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos.

While corporate partners include are RxAll, Unilever, Heineken (Nigerian Breweries) and Friesland Campina. The students are put in groups of 4 (2 Dutch and 2 Nigerian).

Peaking on the criteria for selecting the 12 students that will represent Nigeria at the DNSBC, Falayi said there was a national call for application with interest with focus on solutions that would address challenges on Food, Water, Health and energy.

“We got over 260 applications across 30 higher institutions and one of our major metric was to ensure geograpical spread and gender equality.

So we have students from the North-East, South-South and South-West. However, the plan is to replicate it at scale next year based on the outcome,” he added.

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