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My name is Abia Imo David.
I'm from Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria.
When I came in contact with the Shell LiveWIRE Nigeria that was the
innaugural edition of the competition in Nigeria.
I entered as one of the young business persons aged 25 to 30 and I was given
prize money of 100,000 Naira (about 650 US dollars).
I sunk it all into the business.
I bought the first set of computer.
That transformed my business from analogue videography to digital.
And that one computer has bought more than five.
I'm not talking about just ordinary computers.
State of the art computers for video editing.
Big time.
And moreover cameras have come after then.
I still have a focus.
I'm trying to plough back my profits, keep them, so that I can plough it back
and get better equipment, because I don't just want to be a local champion.
I want to make a name, nationally and internationally.
I want to own a television house.
Everything has to start small to get big.
That focus is where I am pursuing. If I am working in a certain company I cannot
pursue that dream.
When I'm on my own, being a manager of my own and manage myself, my business
and manage the people who work for me, I think is great.
It's great, really satisfying, profitable.
Of course as I'm talking to you I've won an award, a national award,
Central Bank of Nigeria Entrepreneurship Awards on business development
and employment generation.
I emerged the first runner up in the whole country.
That was good for me.
It's an exposure that I've yearned for.
I became a national figure because of that.
Because of that if I go to CBN or wherever, and log in
my database is there. They can always recognize me as somebody that is doing
something to touch lives.
How did that happen?
I have companies that I train people for as part of their community
development efforts.
I train, they bring the youth, I train them on videography and photography.
and after then they empower youths.
So that gave me the ample opportunity of making other youths to think
better that they can actually be useful to themselves
and get to be employers of labour.
Rather than look for white-collar jobs.
LiveWIRE, it changes your attitude.
Rather than look for a job, create job for yourself and for other persons.
That you can then do business and get satisfied, get people to work for you
and you pay them.
So LiveWIRE has changed my attitude towards business.
Now I don't have any other focus.
Business, ahead, expansion, growth.
That is all I think.
And they have trained me on how to keep my books in business to be sure if
I'm breaking even or not.
They have also trained me on how to do business legally.
They've also trained me on what my customer expects of me
as a business person.
I'm telling you, LiveWIRE, they've been tremendous.