i-Scholar Initiative has stated that its goal is to produce youths who are innovative, self-driven and globally competitive to drive development in Nigeria.
In its onboarding session for its 2022 scholars tagged The Bright Minds, Our Future, it stated that it is committed towards ensuring that it facilitates youths to global opportunities to have them compete with the best via its fully funded scholarship for graduate programmes abroad.
In her keynote address, Mrs. Titilayo Olujobi, a member of the iSI Board of Trustees cited human capital development as the biggest driver of development around the world.
She said that calling the children the future of tomorrow is not enough as there is a need to determine what kind of future is to be handed over to them.
She said that the underinvestment in education in Nigeria is limiting to the potentials of young Nigerians, and to bridge that gap is what iSI is out to do.
She said, “I am sure you have often heard the expression that children are our future. But have you ever stopped to ponder on the kind of future that is ahead based on the children that we have?
“With Nigeria being the highest populated country in Africa, there is no doubt that Africa as a continent and Nigeria as a country are full of young men and women with potentially bright minds. The potential, however, has to be developed to deliver a good future – for the individual, the family unit, the Nation of Nigeria and the continent of Africa.
“The underinvestment in education threatens the potentials of Nigeria and the African continent limiting our ability to compete and deliver a bright future for our people in an increasingly competitive world, driven more and more by intellectual capacity.
“We at i-Scholar have chosen to be part of the solution by being one of several initiatives seeking to address the gap of underinvestment in education.
“iSI’s vision is to become the go-to organization for building a younger and self-driven generation for leadership, innovation and overall development in Africa. Our mission is to mentor and empower young African students in fulfilling their dreams to pursue graduate studies via access to fully funded scholarships in world-class foreign universities by leveraging the networks of partnering members.
On her part, Mrs. Anulika Ezekwe, VP, Innovative and Strategic Partnership charged all 65 scholars who got onboarded to maximize the opportunity of the graduate education and mentorship provided by iSI.
She said, “We are grateful to our over 40 partners that participated in the evaluation process, the rigorous selection process that led to selecting these brilliant scholars. We had over 1400 applications and without your support and your diligent work, the selection of these brilliant scholars would not have been possible.
“iSI scholarship represents opportunities and hope for these brilliant scholars. It means iSI is going to fund their GRE test, their TOEFL test and their application fee. And most importantly, we are going to be giving them mentorship as they go through this journey.”
Speaking on behalf of the scholars onboarded, Mustapha Abdullahi Jimoh, a first class graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria expressed gratitude to iSI for the opportunity, promising that they would not let them down.
“Before iSI, I have had some applications but they all failed, many unanswered emails, rejected applications.
“It’s great to have this now. It will push me to my vision of becoming a renowned AI researcher, and put me on a platform to connect with like minds. So on behalf ofthe class 2022, we are grateful to the whole iSI team for this opportunity. And we promise to put in our best to make sure in achieving our dreams and giving back to the society as much as possible.”