Standard Chartered Dangles $50,000 Before Nigerian Businesswomen

By Dipo Olowookere

Five women are expected to grab the $50,000 put down by Standard Chartered Bank (Nigeria) Limited for the second edition of the SC Women in Technology Incubator programme.

The initiative is aimed to support and promote the economic and social development of women in Nigeria through innovation or technology-led entrepreneurship.

Through this scheme, the bank will be focusing on capacity building for women-owned small enterprises and sees this as a great opportunity to support greater diversity in gender representation within technology entrepreneurship for women in the country.

The Standard Chartered Women in Tech programme targets female-led entrepreneurial teams and provide them with training, mentorship and seed funding.

In the first edition, five winners were selected and received seed funding for their businesses and this year, the same format would be followed.

The organisers explained that 11 young businesswomen will go through a rigorous 12-week executive bootcamp during which they would they will interact with industry experts, business development coaches and executives from Standard Chartered. At the end of the training period, each of the five winners with the most compelling ideas will get up to $10,000 to invest in their business.

“We are pleased the second edition of the Nigeria SC Women in tech Incubator is live today. We are optimistic about the impact this programme will have on the socio-economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria.

“The support the beneficiaries will get will go a long way in ensuring the sustainability of the businesses while creating employment for more women and youths in the country,” the Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand and Marketing, Nigeria, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria, Mrs Dayo Aderugbo, stated.

“We are excited about the endless growth opportunities and ripple effect impact this growth will have on the economy.

“This initiative builds on the Bank’s track record of increasing women’s access to entrepreneurial finance, employability and supporting adolescent girls and women through financing and capacity building,” she added.