The Bank of Industry (BOI), is calling for applications from youth corp members with viable business ideas to apply for a loan under the N2 billion Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund (GEF) Programme.

The Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund (GEF) is a special N2 billion empowerment programme for serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) which was launched on October 5, 2015. This scheme which is a joint initiative of the Bank of Industry (BOI) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) hopes to encourage serving corp members to be employers of labour rather than job seekers after their compulsory 1 year NYSC programme.

The GEF Programme comprises of  the following:

• Online Business Plan Competition to select the most promising real sector business ideas, selection/screening of participants shall be done via the GEF online application portal.
• Four days intensive entrepreneurship capacity building programme to hold at 8 locations (NYSC camp location of the 6 geo-political zones including Lagos and Abuja).
• Loan amount of up to N2 million to be provided to each successful participant with bankable business plans within BOI’s 35 SME clusters (list at BOI’s website: www.boi.ng) at an interest rate of 9% per annum, with tenors ranging from 3-5 years inclusive of 6 – 12 months moratorium period.

The Bank of Industry Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund has already supported a number of thriving businesses run by young Nigerians. Beneficiaries of the 2015 edition of the programme, who were NYSC Batch A graduates include Bobby Ariele, Aisha Ilna, Oyewole Titilope and Emmanuel Faleti who are NYSC Batch A 2015 graduates.

Submission of business plan online can be done via: www.boi.ng/gef. Deadline for application is on the 7th of November, 2016.