Young Entrepreneurs Powering Through the Pandemic
Little Big Feature: Joshua Okoduwa
The coronavirus pandemic has affected every sector of society from small businesses, large corporations, and non-profit organizations. It has been a difficult time financially and emotionally as people across the world have been forced to stay at home to protect themselves and their communities.
We do not yet know how this crisis will reshape our businesses and organizations in the coming months and years. However, we already know that many start-ups and young businesses have had to let go of many employees and, some, even shut their doors. Unfortunately, as governments around the world scramble to save their economies, tough choices are being made between supporting large, multi-employee businesses or small-scale companies. Nonetheless, as we at Little Big Fund know, these obstacles do not stop young entrepreneurs from continuing to come up with big ideas.
In fact, times of hardship often lead to innovation and adaptation. In the midst of this crisis, entrepreneurs, who are used to sudden change, stress, and uncertainty, have had to find creative solutions to continue doing their necessary work and overcome the limitations created by the global pandemic.
The drive and determination of LBF fellows has remained strong during these months despite facing hardships in their countries, some which have been the hardest hit by the virus. Joshua Okoduwa, founder of APO backpacks has had to face the speculation that schools might not reopen until 2021 in his country, Nigeria. This means that his idea of providing upcycled solar-powered backpacks to children in rural communities needed pivoting to adapt to the possible reality that schooling will happen mostly online or, in some cases, not at all until next year.
Understanding the situation and the challenges posed by the closure of schools, Joshua has decided to shift APO backpacks to provide school essentials for children to study from home. All in continuing with his mission of ensuring that more children get access to an improved education regardless of their situations or, in this new reality, a government-mandated lockdown.
Our scholars are not only bright, young innovators but also changemakers. Joshua has not only been working on his own idea, but seeing the need in his community during lockdown, he has been helping to provide palliatives to support families across Lagos, Nigeria. Alongside the organization Restructure Africa, he has helped 6245 families with food supplies and raised over $7000 to implement these objectives.
Journeys like Joshua’s are why young entrepreneurs need to be supported and their ideas catalyzed. They are not discouraged by uncertainty. Contrarily, they are driven by partnering with those in need and innovating to bring big ideas to life.