Student Creativity: Need For Supportive Environment

Talents and creativity risk being suffocated in communities where the environment is not propitious for their expression. As oxygen to relieve such asphyxia of talents, building an enabling atmosphere for creativity is crucial.
An example to foster the proper expression of talents was the University of Buea (UB) as they recently hit news headlines for presenting their students to compete at world level for an award by the China-based Huawei ICTs Global Stage. The competition for the 2023 / 2024 session in China reportedly grouped some 165 teams from various countries with Nguepi Gnetedem Paterson leading the Cameroon team to win the first prize in the Network Track. 
It was great honour and publicity for Cameroon thanks to UB’s Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FET) for venturing in the international competition. The award portrays Cameroon as a country harbouring great talents, which need just to be harnessed, exposed and encouraged. The benefits of nursing and guiding talents in communities count much for development and advancement. It is even more glorious for a nation when their sons and daughters are ingenious in entrepreneurial domains like the case of UB.
Many observers are suggesting that those talented Cameroonians should not end at winning prizes but must be guided further to create enterprises to sell their worth and develop the country with their inventions. The unfortunate thing has been the continuous years of socio-political crisis in the North West and South West Regions pulling back the hand of the clock since 2016. Otherwise, it is posited that the ambitions of the University of Buea would have been increasingly exemplary in producing and giving more exposure to talented brains from its milieu. 
The youth of Cameroon have proven to be endowed with huge potentials. They just need to be properly harnessed and those already in the lamplight should be given the means to develop their inventions into profitable businesses and services. Equally, training should be given the seriousness it deserves in all institutions to hatch many more talents. Such endeavours to get serious field work, guest lecturers, and industry partnerships can do the trick to spur the young students to develop valuable talents useful for themselves and to society. 
For entrepreneurship to thrive, hands on, creative thinking and innovation are essential.  Institutions of learning can foster such development traits by integrating competitions and tasks that challenge students to solve problems in the open eyes of the world. Students are more able to embrace uncertainty and uncover new possibilities when put in favourable conditions. They just need to be more exposed to more experimentation and daring. More tools are required from Higher Education for students to research, and come up with workable solutions for entrepreneurial glitches.
But then, questions arise as to where the top laureates from the universities are. What do they do after schooling? Do their institutions even know or want to know where they are? Have they been offered meaningful support? The answers blow in the wind. It is reliably reported that many of the sharp brains are in the diaspora under brain drain employment. Some complain of lack of sponsorship to engage in creative businesses in their own home. It is often said that the road to entrepreneurship entertains the highs and lows of society. Persistence and adaptation to change with the times appear an urgent requirement. Exposing talents to entrepreneurial realities and providing support systems to scale challenges can be most welcome.
The nerve of the venture into invention and industry lies in sponsorship. Are there viable institutions that can bankroll projects of creativity? How do beginners take off? The answers are found in the will to engage in meaningful development enterprise and advancement.
Society must support and enhance entrepreneurial abilities to acquire experiential learning. Cooperative education, specialised int...