Nigerians have been called upon to explore the vast opportunities that the internet provides for positive entrepreneurship purposes.

The Director of the Centre for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ilorin, Dr Mahfouz Adedimeji, made the call penultimate weekend while delivering a lecture at the 2015 Digital Entrepreneurship Summit organised by the Institute of Corporate Administrators at Kwara Hotel, Ilorin.

In the lecture, entitled "Entrepreneurship Opportunities in the Digital Economy: A Communicative Approach", the don, who is also a Fellow of the Institute, disclosed that at the end of last year, at least 67,101,452 Nigerians were active internet users, citing the 2015 Internet Live Statistics.

He added that the internet penetration of many Nigerians, despite the "digital divide" between the developed and the developing worlds, will continue to increase and the transition of many activities online provides abundant opportunities for people with entrepreneurship spirit. He also noted that being alive in the 21st century is being online and he charged everyone to maintain online presence, a simple test of which is to Google one's name.

While defining an entrepreneur as someone who is able to look at the environment, identify opportunities to improve that environment, marshal resources and implement action to maximise those opportunities, Dr. Adedimeji said that opportunities abound where there are needs. He noted that as long as life exists, human needs will remain. He cited Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs to illustrate how physiological needs (air, water, food, clothing, shelter) and others like safety, love/belonging, esteem and self-actualisation will provide opportunities for those who provide such services.

The guest lecturer, who is also a prolific columnist with a number of newspapers and periodicals, said that the fact that more than 60 million Nigerians including many graduates are unemployed is a failure of innovation and ability to think out of the box. He then illustrated innovative thinking with the story of three Hindu brothers who inherited 17 cows that were to be distributed in fractions and how a suggested extra cow borrowed made the distribution easy ultimately, with the extra cow returned to the owner.

According to the don, graduates are not employed because of such factors as fixation on getting white collar jobs, not wanting to start small, desiring to work with one's certificate, not skills; considering formal employment as the goal of higher education, lack of innovation and innovative thinking, dearth of entrepreneurship spirit, low self-esteem and undue comparison.

He canvassed being unreasonable in the "Age of Unreason", a book he said Charles Handy wrote in 1989, while quoting George Bernard Shaw that a reasonable man adapts himself to the world while an unreasonable man persists in adapting the world to himself. In other words, he said, an unreasonable person is a stranger and blessed are the strangers.

The guest lecturer, who is also a Fulbright scholar, said that e-commerce, e-business, bulk sms marketing, online magazines, newspapers and newsletters, blogging, social media consultancy, virtual assistantship, graphic design, website creation, among others, are what any graduate with good communication skills can do with high returns.

He emphasised the significance of communication skills in the digital economy while urging the audience to improve on their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills through which they can receive and produce information, the engine and driver of the digital economy.

The high points of the occasion, which was facilitated by Mr. John Arunsi, included the induction and investiture of new Fellows, Members and Associate Members. Some of the Fellows inducted included the Registrar of the Kwara State University, Pastor M. O. Salami; the Director of the Technical and Entrepreneurial Centre, University of Ilorin, Dr. Umar Gunu; and the Admission Officer of the University of Ilorin, Mr. Mansur Alfanla.