Orange Sierra Leone, the country’s leading mobile company is encouraging Sierra Leonean youths to become entrepreneurs so that they can solve societal problems.
Orange Social Venture Prize (OSVP) is the model employed by the mobile network company to get brilliant business ideas from the youths.
Through the OSVP model, youths pitch different business ideas, and the best pitcher gets a prize that enable them start a business of their own.
A Personnel in the Communication Unit, Orange SL, Mabel Mason told Nightwatch that the competition would be held on 10th October, this year.
This is the second time, she said, it would be held for young talented Sierra Leoneans who would like to become success business entrepreneurs.
Considering that the country is challenged with COVID-19, Orange Sierra Leone will not do the physical presence, but television stations of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBC), Star Radio and FTN will be engaged for the competition.
Radio stations, she said, would also be used for the occasion.
“The winner of the OSVP, 2020 will get an attractive prize that will help him start up his own business,2 she assured.
In determining who pitches the best business idea, Mabel Mason explains the process:
“There will be a panel of judges who will judge whatever is pitched just like what we did last year.”
Sierra Leone is a country confronted with the problem of unemployment for a long time, a situation that has been linked to the lack of entrepreneurship and investment by young people.
Most of the country’s universities are calling on the graduate youths to use their skills to become job creators and not job seekers.
The situation if fully complied will lead to a drastic reduction of joblessness in the country and empower the young people.
The move by orange Sierra Leone is a direct response to the clarion call of the country’s universities to encourage the youths to become entrepreneurs.