ENTERPRISE54 – Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) is easily one of the best entrepreneurship schools and startup incubators Africa has. It admits graduates for a two-year training on entrepreneurship, invests and supports startups of some of the alumni, boasts of world class talents from Yale, Silicon Valley and Banglore (India’s version of the Valley) on its faculty and even has two companies – Saya Mobile and Dropifi – whom have made it to Silicon Valley, the tech capital of the world.

“Very few seed investors in Silicon Valley will put money into markets as early as Africa… but Dropifi has a killer team and a promising product with global reach,” 500 Startups Founder and former Facebook Investment chief Dave McClure, once said of his first African investment.

On July 11th, for the first time, the MEST team was in Nigeria to select prospective Nigerian entrepreneurs for its fall academic session. Our gratitude goes to Interswitch, Nigeria’s leading digital payment company for sponsoring the move.

Interswitch MD Mitchel Elegbe, a smart and reserved business mind, is a member of Lagos Angel Network, an elite technology-focused investment group and has been at the forefront of technological development in Nigeria.

Packed in a Four Points by Sheraton conference room, 400 applicants were interviewed over three days. The delectable MEST Business Development head Katie Sarro let us know they were “impressed” by the quality of talent. “Two females were incredible and got a ‘yes’ from everyone during deliberation,” she revealed, wearing a mild smile.

Unfortunately, only eleven applicants were admitted due to capacity constraints “and it’s why we’re launching into partnerships” Katie explained.

Going by inside scoop from Katie, MEST would be opening a branch in Nigeria next year and Interswitch has undertaken to provide the campus. Interswitch, now a pan-African payment company, is poised to join technology gaints like Microsoft and Google with the ownership of a world class campus to foster R&D and innovation.

Efforts to reach Interswitch for comments have proved abortive at the time of this writing.

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However, Nigeria’s Federal Minister of Communication Technology Dr. Omobola Johnson has said the “Interswitch MEST program complements the work of the Federal Ministry in developing the skills and reach of local ICT entrepreneurs” and hopes it births world class software companies.