Marketing Experts Urge Nigerians To Be Innovation Driven

THE call for stronger private sector participation and less reliance on the government got a boost recently when Verdant Zeal held her Innovation Series.

The event which brought Nigerians from all works of life like Prof. Pat Utomi as guest speaker; Mr. Lere Baale, Funke Egbemode, Chris Uwaje, and Kunle Afolayan as panellists; was moderated General Manager Operations Channels Television, by Kayode Akintemi.

It was held under the theme, “The role of innovation in creating new a agenda for national development”.

Welcoming the guests, CEO Verdant Zeal and chief convener of the event, Mr. Tunji Olugbodi stated that Africa is at the threshold of something great. With an estimated population of 1.1 billion, huge deposits of natural resources, cost effective labour, a teeming youth population with an appetite for consuming just about anything the world produces, there’s so much potential waiting to the exploited.

According to him, “this Innovation Series is a think-tank for finding relevant solutions that can move us forward. This is a place where common Nigerians, who have deep and unrelenting loyalty to Nigeria’s growth and development, can marinate ideas with the intent of putting them into action when the opportunity presents itself”.

He stated that inventions and innovations that changed the world had always started from the smallest ideas, noting that that formed the choice of topic for the year.

In his speech, Chairman of the occasion, Mr. Steve Omojafor while congratulated Verdant Zeal for putting the series together. He stated that innovation is the process of translating an idea or invention into a product or service that creates values for customers.

He went further to say that “innovation involves deliberate application of information, imagination and initiative in creating greater values from resources and includes all processes by which new ideas are generated and converted into greater ideas”.

Speaking about the role of passion in human success, Chairman Troika Group, Biodun Shobanjo charged the audience particularly the youth and students to always have their focus beyond ATM cards and fat bank accounts.

Using himself as a case study, he urged the youth to have passion for their profesions, saying he has put about 40 years in the Marketing Communication business.