The story of college dropouts who later turned out to be multi-billionaires as a result of the great businesses they built is a popular success story. The likes of Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Richard Branson of Virgin and Mark Zuckerberg of facebook to name a few. Here is a list of 55 School Drop Out Billionaires and Successful Entrepreneurs.

At the other end of the spectrum are entrepreneurs who didn’t necessarily drop out of school, but began their entrepreneurial journey while in school. Here’s a list of 10 Successful Entrepreneurs Who Started Businesses in College. This is the category I belong; building my business while I was still schooling.

Both categories of entrepreneurs are living proofs of one fact; there are potential entrepreneurs on campuses. It is no longer smart to wait for them to finish schooling before planting in them the seed of entrepreneurship. As they say; “catch them young”.

This is particularly important especially in my country Nigeria where there’s a growing rate of unemployment. Every year several thousand youths graduate from these higher institutions with no hope of employment.

Recognizing this growing problem is what inspired the publishers of “Paddy Gbam” magazine to create this platform to raise and empower entrepreneurs on Nigerian campuses. I am part of the organizing team and have been selected to lead the talk on entrepreneurship development on campuses.

We will be kicking off the tour this Thursday, 7^th Feb., 2013 at the Federal University of Technology Akure [FUTA]. We have 8 universities and colleges already scheduled for the month of February alone and this is just season one!

CampusPreneur Tour 2013 – The Schedule

The Tour will also feature other entrepreneurs like Rita Oloko, a make up professional and Segun Jiwande, a fashion designer. Orisha Femi a popular Nigerian musician will also be performing alongside budding artiste such as; Rizz, Lace, Testimony and D-whyne. This tour is proudly supported by; naijapreneur, soundcity, Nigezie, Primetime Africa, Dynamix, Acada, The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune, and Punch Newspaper and others.

Below is the timetable for the CampusPreneur Tour 2013;

@FUTA  – 07/02/2013
Francis Thedibire Auditorium

@TASUED   -12/02/2013

@MAPOLY  -15/02/2013
OGD Auditorium

@UNAAB  -13/02/2013

@OOU    -19th/02/2013

@UI (IBADAN) -21/02/2013
Trenchard Hall

@AAUA   – 26/02/2013
Olusegun Obasanjo Auditorium

@IREPOLY  -28/02/2013

Stay tuned as we will keep updating the venue for other schools!

Your Turn

There are a few things you can do to support this initiative;

• One, like our facebook page and help spread the word among your friends.

• Two, if you are living around any of the 8 schools listed above, make it a date and join us at the designated venue.
• Share this post using any of the floating icons by the left hand side of the site on twitter, facebook, linkedin and google+.

Thanks for your support; we hope to do many more of such initiatives.