“My parents thought I had lost my mind when I came back to Nigeria to train talents.” — Nadayar Enegesi
On today’s episode of #WithChude, the tech guru and co-founder of Andela gave a clear reason why the team left Canada just to start a new company in Nigeria.
He shared more about the journey so far and the success of training Nigeria talents irrespective of his parents resistance to what he believed in.
In his words:
“We had no funding for the business by the time we came back to Nigeria. My parents were in Nigeria and they thought I had lost my mind. For things that are like drastic change but you really feel it in your soul that that is what you should be doing. The last place to go for advice is close friends and family. Because they will respond out of love and care. All they can see is the down side. Only you really knows that thing in your heart that you need to make sure exist in the world.
Chude ask: Any time you talk to CEO everyone is always talking about lack of great talent and now we can always blame it on migration, but we’ve been complaining about this thing before it became popular to japa. So, were your assumptions true because you were looking from outside?
Nadayar: The assumptions are correct. Definitely, just existing does not make someone a talent. Talent still has to be developed. Especially for what that talent should be doing or performing. Despite that, we still have a lot of people who are educated. How many people graduate from universities in Nigeria? I think for us it’s about how do we take advantage of our numbers, like what kinds of things can we do to nurture and improve talents. Because inside of talent development there are also aside from the hard skills which I think you are talking about there are also traits that are innate. for example one of the biggest predictors of success is grit and persistence. If there’s one thing we are good at in this country, its grit and persistence.
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Head over HERE to watch the full interview.
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