Apply For Ecobank 2018 Fintech Challenge For African Start-ups

Ecobank says it has begun applications for start-ups and developers in the 54 countries in Africa to apply for its 2018 fintech challenge.

The financial institution announced this challenge which is in its second year via its website, ecobankfintech.com on Thursday.

The initiative gives African start-ups the chance to promote their fintech solutions, and potentially to partner with Ecobank in rolling-out their solutions across 33 countries where the bank operates.

According to the Group CEO, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Mr Ade Ayeyemi, who reiterated Ecobank’s dedication to support innovations in banking and finance across the continent, via the website.

“We, at Ecobank, believe that the current winds of change led by technology and innovation will redefine how banks do business, and indeed the relationships people have with their money.

“We want to be at the forefront of this change, in partnership with Africa’s rising start-ups, and that is why we created the Ecobank Fintech Challenge,” he said.

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26 Best Websites To Learn Incredibly Useful New Skills

1. CreativeLive

CreativeLive broadcasts free live classes with the world's top experts in photography, business, design, craft, and audio. There are over 1,000+ classes with seasoned experts in every industry.

2. OfficeHours

Connect with experienced professionals in any industry, for 10 minutes of free, 1-on-1 advice over video chat.

3. Coach.me

A free personal coaching and goal-tracking app with access to over 750+ personal coaches and a vibrant community to help you define and achieve your goals.

4. edX

Join over 5 million learners in highly actionable online classes backed by Harvard, MIT, and other prestigious universities & organizations from around the world.


5. General Assembly

Take in-person or online classes, taught by certified experts, on a wide range of technology, business, design, and marketing-related topics.

6. Treehouse

If you want to learn how to build a website, app, or launch an online business, Treehouse has over 169,000 students learning from well over 1,000 online classes on these topics. 

7. Skillcrush

Learn the most in-demand digital skills from Skillcrush's various immersive, 3-month Career Blueprint programs that are designed to give you marketable new tech skills, quickly.

8. HighBrow

Get short, digestible, daily lessons delivered straight to your email inbox each morning on topics related to happiness, creativity, history, and more.

9. Lynda

As one of the first large online education platforms, Lynda features over 4,000 classes in business, design, development, photography, and much more.

10. Coursmos

Get access to bite-sized micro video & audio classes from top professionals in personal development, health & wellness, business, and more.

11. CodeAcademy

Learn to code for free, in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Ruby, and more.

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Top 20 Nigerian Scholarships In 2018

A scholarship is a grant or money given to students as support in footing their school bills.

In Nigeria, there are numerous scholarship opportunities available for undergraduate and postgraduate students alike.

These offers are mostly sponsored by top oil and gas coys, multi-national companies, governments and private philanthropic foundations.

As someone who has benefitted from many of these opportunities while in school, I have taken time to compile a list of top 20 scholarship opportunities for Nigerian students in 2018 with details of each scholarship. Good luck to every applicant.

In no particular order, see the list below:


1. Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Scholarship.

The Nigerian LNG company awards scholarships to suitable and deserving students in different Nigerian universities every year. This scholarship is arguably the highest scholarship in Nigeria worth-based!

Level: 100 level

Worth: N300,000 every year till graduation.

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Apply For Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme 2018

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is now accepting applications for business ideas that can transform Africa. The Programme, in its 4th cycle, is Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 10-year, $100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs by 2024.


1,000 entrepreneurs will be selected based on the viability of their idea, including: market opportunity; financial understanding; scalability; and leadership and entrepreneurial skills demonstrated in the application.

Benefits
The Programme provides critical tools for business success, including:

Training:12 weeks of intensive online training which guides creating and managing a business

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See the people that crashed MMM Nigeria

It is no longer news that MMM Nigeria has crashed but what had eluded the news is the people whose actions actually led to the crash of the popular Ponzi scheme. Every participant who put their funds into the Ponzi scheme has been calling for the head of Mavrodi, however, as an observer I sat down, analyzed and finally was able to fish out the real major culprits who should be blamed for the crash of MMM Nigeria.

1     The MMM Nigeria Guiders:

As a guider in MMM Nigeria, you get 10% of the help provided from every downline or referral that are duly registered. This means that if you as a participant is to provide help of N100,000 your guider will get N10,000 richer. Now, a guider that has about let’s say 100 downline for example and each of the downlines are providing help of N100,000 that means that the guider will get N10,000 X 100= N1Million each month for doing nothing. So cool right? Wrong!! Pulling out such huge amount will lead to a major financial strain on the system, that’s why a lot of people couldn’t get help anymore.

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How to grow your money by 30% with MMM Nigeria

What Is MMM Nigeria?

MMM Nigeria is a newly launched platform for all Nigerians to be part of the Global Community of MMM.

MMM’s motive at all times is to extend its helping hands through its social financial network. Allow me share with you what MMM is in details so that you can understand it better.

MMM is not a bank, MMM does not collect your MONEY, MMM is not an online business, HYIP, investment or MLM program. MMM is a community where people help each other. MMM gives you a technical basic program, which helps millions of participants worldwide to find those who NEED help, and those who are ready to PROVIDE help for FREE.

How does MMM Help?

MMM is the world’s largest donation exchange with over 138million participants and in over 107 countries worldwide. It is a peer-to-peer donation platform that assists anyone who needs any form of financial help.

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Effective Time Management Tips for Entrepreneurs

Time is valuable to everyone be it for monetary value or not, time is needed in order to accomplish a certain goal. As an entrepreneur, you have to know the importance of effective time management and how to manage time to make you more productive in your business.

So what is Time Management?

Time management is the process where one has control over the amount of time spent on a task which in turn leads to increase in productivity.

The major importance of time management is that it makes your business to be more productive and very effective when rendering service to customers. For example, let’s say you have about 20 customers waiting to be attended to, you have only 1 staff attending to all the customers. The amount of time the staff will spend attending to customers will be higher than when you have about 5 staff attending to the customers. Doing this will help you manage the time spent on attending to a customer and in return improve productivity, effectiveness and efficiency.

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Attitudes that can improve your future as an Entrepreneur

To effectively and successfully develop yourself as an entrepreneur you have to be prepared to improve on some of your attitudes and habits which in turn can boost your chances of having a successful business.

In this article, we shall discuss various attitudes and habits that can make your business grow and make you a successful entrepreneur.

Plan how you spend your money/profit:

Making money is the easy part but planning how to spend ones money, income or profit has proven to be the difficult part as many young entrepreneurs do not or are unable to plan how they spend the money got from their business effectively, hence, at the end of the month, they find it difficult to recall how the money was spent. It is advisable to map out ways on how to spend your money/profit received from your business so that you don’t spend all right away.

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Customer service and its importance to your business

It has been mentioned on different occasions on this blog that customer service is the back bone of any organization or business. Customer service is one area that any business that is willing to expand, be profitable and survive perilous times must take that aspect very seriously.

So what is customer service?

Customer service can be defined in simple terms as the assistance and advice rendered by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services.

Customer Service is the service you render to customers before, during and after a purchase of products, goods or services.

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Public speaking as a Career

Public speaking is the process of passing information and connecting with an audience or a large gathering of people via speech. Hence a professional speaker is someone who talks to a large audience or group of people.

So how can you become a professional public speaker?

Before I go ahead, one thing you have to take note is that public speakers are confident, have very good oratory skills, good command of language, organized, outgoing and know how to motivate their audiences. Don’t be worried if you do not have any of these qualities yet as you can learn and acquire all these skills and qualities.

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Getting customers via Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the advertising of products or services via various digital means especially on the internet or electronic media.

Digital marketing also deals with increasing generation of sales by building a good customer relationship and retention process by ensuring that customer’s needs and expectations are met.

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Effective Marketing Strategies for your Business

We have heard about marketing several times but do we really know what marketing is all about? 

Well, in simple terms marketing has to do with advertising, selling and promoting of goods and services.

Now that we know what marketing is and what it entails we shall discuss about how you can effectively market your business.

For you to market your goods and services effectively, there are some marketing strategies you need to focus on.

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Ways you can invest your Salary and Income

Have you started your own business and wondering how to invest your income? Is this your first job and you are wondering how to invest your money or have been working since and you need to invest prior to your retirement? 

Well, you need to know that the major aim of investing your cash is to generate an extra stream of income which in turn can make you a millionaire by having a good investment plan.

Investing is a process were your money works for you while you rest without a single sweat, however, one thing you have to bear in mind is that investment requires a lot of patience, basic knowledge and appropriate guidance to ensure that your investment grows and yield positively.

In this article, I shall discuss various ways you can invest and diversify your salary to earn constant income.

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Things needed to make a successful business

The major aim of most entrepreneurs is to be successful and make profit. However, the big question is “what makes a business to be successful?”

There are several businesses that are set up daily, some did well while others didn’t even survive the startup stage. It is obvious that many entrepreneurs who start their own business are not prepared and ready for the hurdles and challenges ahead which leads to the eventual collapse of the business.

In this article, I shall discuss what you can do and the basic things needed to make your business successful.

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5 Businesses you can start with just N250,000

With the current economic outlook in Nigeria and increase in cost of goods and services, making ends meet and taking care of daily demands/ expenses in the country on only one source of income is getting burdensome.

Even if you are currently working, it is advisable to get another extra means of income to enable you meet up with the ever growing demands and sharp increase in cost of goods and services in the country. So it is advisable to be both an employee and an entrepreneur to earn extra cash.

There are different businesses one can do and this article will give you an insight into various businesses you can start with a little as N250,000 initial capital. However, remember to carry out the necessary research about the business you which to start, basic requirements and most importantly, get a mentor that will assist in various areas you have any challenges.  

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