Covenant: ‘The Entrepreneurial University’

Ada Peter, Ph.D.Director International Office and Linkages, Covenant University

Covenant – An Innovation in the Nigerian Education System

§ The Nigerian Ecosystem

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

Core Values – Spirituality, Integrity, Possibility Mentality, capacity building, Responsibility, Diligence, Sacrifice.

Total Man Concept – Education that caters for the Spirit- Soul-Mind

Entrepreneurial Education – Changed from teaching about entrepreneurship to cultivating entrepreneurs. Embraced industry partnership and collaboration.

Leveraged our success in EDS to launch the Entrepreneurship Educators Workshop two years in a row

What are main successes?

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J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

98% of Covenant University graduates are either Employers or already employed (2018)

No.1 Nigerian University with the most employed graduates (STUTERN)

http://eprints.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/11968/1/2018%2BNigerian%2BGraduate%2BReport.pdf

Positive feedback from Employers – Integrity –ownership (responsibility)

What are main successes? Cont’d

§ Graduates building businesses in

millions of dollars

§ Let’s see a few examples

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

Has supported over 4,000 farmers in funding, technical supports and access to markets.

“We found out that 50% of the companies we invested in were founded by graduates of Covenant University”

Lead Path Venture Capitalist

What can you share that could be scalable or transferable to other members?

§ Embed entrepreneurship into the University curriculum

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

What are the main challenges?

§ Innovation as we used to know it: Macro- top down structure that

needs approval of leadership before execution

§ We want to successfully shift the Covenant Innovation System from

macro level to micro level where individuals are free to take ideas from

‘inception to impact’ on their jobs, studies, research, and management

processes.

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

Question for the group

§ Ideas to evident impact

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

How do we drive an innovation culture that shifts from a macro organizational structure to micro activities of each individual in the organization?

What I call “ regular updating of the human software system used for executing specific task”

An Innovation culture at micro levels of the community (faculty, students and staff activities and learning)

Project: Embedding a Culture of Innovation

§ Goals: To embed a culture of innovation into the university system. The culture of individually tweaking how we execute tasks – recognizing the discovery process-refresh rate- measurement points.

§ Actions: 1. Considering a policy document

2. Participation at MIT JWEL Week2. Enrolled for a few innovation courses on MITx. E.g. Innovation in Schools by Justin and Senge.

§ Timeline: 1 – 6 years for full blown assessment

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

Project: Embedding a Culture of Innovation

§ Assessments will be based on improved organizational outcomes:

1. Improved research outputs/ breakthroughs.

2. Improved teaching and learning outcomes;

3. Improved Graduate outcomes (employees and employers)

4. Improved administrative processes

J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019

Thanks

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J-WEL Week October 28-31, 2019