Catholic University Institute of Buea (CUIB) students were advised to be observant, curious and experimental in their quest of becoming innovators and entrepreneurs.

This was during the guest speaker event of the month of December.

Sharon and Valerie McIntyre-Baird, consultants for ENEO, Cameroon who both talked on “Place-based innovation: How entrepreneurs can create unique, successful business despite their local constraints,” called on the students to pay particular attention to the things they dislike around them so they could seek feasible solutions to them, thus solving the immediate problems of their communities’.

While urging students to engage in meaningful and thoughtful discussions, they laid emphasis on the fact that the opportunities in Cameroon abound; coupled with its abundance of natural resources.

The consultants during their talk identified three characteristics of innovation: incremental innovation which involves improving on things; adaptive innovation which combines things that have never been combined before to come up with a new product or service as well as the disruptive innovation which is inventing or developing new products to replace existing ones to gain competitive advantage.

According to Valerie success to an entrepreneur is impacting a community rather than the adage of success equals making money. On this note she cautioned CUIB’s entrepreneurs that money should be an outcome and not a goal of any entrepreneurial venture. Thus demystifying the myth that venture capital is all it takes.

In their concluding message, Sharon and Valerie told students to never be afraid to fail, for failure helps growth, thus, they encouraged students to be committed to their projects despite the challenges. They went on to appreciate and hail the institution particularly the students for being remarkable in their quest for knowledge and solutions in resolving their community problems.

The President of CUIB, Rev. Fr. George Nkeze thanked Sharon and Valerie for taking time out to talk to the CUIB family. He in affirmation to the talk on “Place-based innovation: How entrepreneurs can create unique, successful business despite their local constraints,” challenged students to engage in feasible businesses that will address problems of CUIB’s host community, Buea.