Youth Empowerment & ICT Foundation sponsored by Jim Ovia....... MY MEMOIR

Social Media Awareness: "the good the bad and the ugly"

Ok so i got to civic centre an hour late and fortunately for me they hadn't started.

I did my necessary documentation with the beautiful ushers at the door, for a moment I actually thought I was at a beauty pageant

Anyway, the show got started by 11am and was anchored by basket mouth who got everybody in the audience laughing at his jokes and on point pitch.

He introduced the head of IT zenith bank, Lanre Aina of google Nigeria, chudi from y naija/future awards, captain from @giditraffic who was represented and the VP of James Hope College.

The head of IT zenith bank gave the opening remark.

The next speaker was chudi from y naija/future awards, where he talked about why social media exist. He made us understand that power has changed from institution, corporate bodies etc to an individual with a phone or better still a social media user.

The next speaker was Lanre Aina of google Nigeria

His key points where

·         The world is your oyster

·         The amateur rule

·         Consumer have Become participants and co creators

·         Subscribers are everything

·         If content is king, video is crowned prince

It was fun filled and very educative, @giditraffic was represented and a great deal of information was passed across to us relating to the usefulness of its twitter handle to our (social media users) daily life concerning traffic in Lagos  and a whole lot more

“ if a person gives you a laptop, computer or a Smart phone don’t thank the person yet, until he gives you a high speed internet” Jim Ovia

Indeed, Mr. Jim Ovia gave away 1000 blackberry smart phones and about 400 laptop with 1 year high speed internet to those present. Basically for the primary/secondary school students.

The next speaker was Miss Uche Pedro from bellanaija.com who talked basically on social media headlines

Jim Ovia told the speakers to lay emphasis on the negative aspect of social media which miss pedro took lead by explaining in detail the story of Cynthia who got the bitter pill via the social media and how our headline should be talked about in positive terms. She topped it up with a word of advice to the younger ones that in the world of internet there is no delete button…. That’s something to ponder on..

The next speaker was Mr. Malcolm Phillip the principal of James Hope College, who took the stand to talk about how young people need education to transgress as the IT world transgresses.

The last speaker was the manager of visafone who made us understand that by achieving what we want to achieve in a small way, it will eventually lead to something big overtime.

Finally, basket mouth vote of thanks was top notched, he described Mr Ovia way of empowering the mind of everyone present, not by giving cash physically but mentally, cos the mind is priceless..

A big thank you to Mr Ovia for this youth empowerment scheme, and I just hope other top shot in Nigeria follow his footsteps..

I sure had fun and I was empowered positively…. Its bye for now

JESSE