Funding SMEs with CryptoCurrency - How can STEEM help?

When I look back at the ugly experiences I had after my first degree in the university, I would strongly advocate for a work-study. This is to help a student build skills and raise some funds for startup after school. This becomes so essential for a country like Nigeria that government is not doing anything to ameliorate the growing rate of unemployment, though, funding has been a major challenge.

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While in school, it becomes very necessary for one to learn a life skill and probably start-off a small business. This I advice young people and it's been yielding amazing results as per the positive impact in their financial lives after school. Today, Small and Medium Scale business are the life-wire of the Nigerian economy as young people are seeing the need to create avenues to survive.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are key to inclusive economic growth. In Nigeria, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have employed 60 million people from a total number of 37 million MSMEs according to figures shared in 2015 by the then Minister of Industry and Trade, Dr Olusegun Aganga. He said at the time that MSMEs, accounted for 48 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP).source

I dream of building a Business Start-up Funding Foundation and that I would do with STEEM token. I see a future where I can incubate startups on the rudiments of business thriving, adoption of blockchain technology and afterwards fund them to start-off with crypto. With this, we will be having a growing niche of new business adopters of cryptocurrency and that would be a huge win for Steem Community. We have several; foundations running in Nigeria that are helping to set-up your minds for business and funding them to start-up. One of the very popular is The Tony Elumelu Foundation. It is expected that a applicant would be able to attend series of Business mentorship training and also write some technical examinations (written and Oral) to qualify for the grant. I presume the grant is always given in Naira.

I think Steem can buy into such a vision as this. An entry qualification for such funding should be that the applicant must integrate blockchain technology into his business strategy and operation, be willing to make financial transactions with cryptocurrency and be ready to adopt STEEM as a pilot payment module. Finally, a successful applicant would be required to make a counterpart funding deposit of Fiat for STEEM (no matter how small, say $50). That means if steem blockchain or community is sponsoring 10 startups per batch, STEEM worth $300 would be bought and must be staked or probably a promise not to liquidate soon, then the team now receives a grant of whatsoever amount (in liquid STEEM) to fund their business.

STEEM is presently worth more than the Nigerian Naira (about NGN 85) and that's a huge advantage. Giving out a grant of say $300 in STEEM to a start-up that would be utilizing the token for transaction would be a huge thing.

This would have been able to create a huge publicity for Steem and many firms would be in to collaborate. I long to see DApps being built in the near future who are utilizing STEEM for their commercial transactions.

With this, we will see many tangible usecases emerge for STEEM. The more utility attached to the token, the more valuable the token would be. Let's share thoughts together.