Diamond Bank Plc has kicked-off its sixth year of Building Entrepreneurs Today (BET) as it focuses on three sectors, including agriculture, health and education.
The BET programme is an annual capacity building and business education project which involves the training of 50 budding entrepreneurs over a period of six months after which the top five entrepreneurs are awarded N 3,000,000 grants for their businesses expansion.
Consequently, the bank targets 10,000 application this year compared to 5,000 last year. Speaking at the official opening of the BET6 in Lagos, Uzoma Dozie, group managing director, explained that BET is a collaboration between Diamond Bank and Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan Atlantic University, which started about five years ago.
He sees massive opportunity in agriculture following the naira devaluation and the dwindling revenue occasioned by sharp drop in oil prices.
Uzoma stressed that Diamond Bank is committed to building local entrepreneurs who understands the market and could adapt quicker.
This annual initiative has contributed immensely to the pool of skilled small and medium scale entrepreneurs as well as enduring wealth creation in the country.
Also speaking at the occasion, Peter Bankole from Enterprise Development Center, said by the end of this year, the programme would have registered 10,000 and Diamond Bank would have given out N90 million in grant.
“I have not seen too much consistency when it comes to supporting small businesses. We started with right ideas which metamorphosed into BET”, Bankole said.
In an interview with journalists immediately after the ceremony, Njideka Esomeju, head, emerging businesses, Diamond Bank, said the whole idea of BET is empowerment, ensuring we move people to the next level.
“We take application from all over the country. Last year we had about 5,000 applicants. This year we are expecting about 10,000 applications. We are focusing on agriculture, health sector and education. We need to make sure our schools are better. We need to make sure our health facilities are better and we need to make sure we produce enough food to eat”, Esomeju said.
Speaking further, she said, “We have been doing this for five years and this is the sixth year, it is sustainable. We have trained over 300 people. We have given out seed money to about 25 people so far. We need to invest in our own people and we follow them over time and have seen the impact BET programme has had on their business. We train 50 people for six months”.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
