Last year, I shared a conference stage with the founder of a thriving company in a particular industry. He made the claim that his company has received millions of dollars in grants and funding from local and foreign organizations to the point that they had to reject some willing investors. A 7 year old business operating in a challenging terrain, rejecting capital, is unheard of. But that is the reality for this well positioned player in this lucrative trillion dollar industry that I’m going to tell you about in the next few minutes. If you want to build a business or pursue a career in some of the most lucrative fields, in this video, I’m going to share with you 5 industries that are fast creating million dollar businesses and some reasons why these industries have huge opportunities to create wealth today.
No, it’s not Artificial intelligence, Big Data, machine learning or virtual reality. Without a doubt, these technology innovations are already creating enormous opportunities, but today’s video is not about them. Before we get to it, be sure to subscribe to After School TV for more insightful videos like this.
1. Healthcare Services
During the corona virus outbreak, a pharmaceutical laboratory in Senegal created the cheapest testing kit, and a team of researchers produced a prototype for the cheapest ventilator using 3D printing technology. In Ghana, a company delivered blood samples from rural area to laboratory in the city using drones. In Nigeria, Lifebank – a startup that develops smart ways to deliver critical blood supplies to hospitals in busy cities – raised $0.2 million to support and expand its operations. These are few of the creative ways people are creating tech driven health care solutions.
According to the IFC, Africa’s $21 billion healthcare market could double in size in a decade. Before the corona virus outbreak, a growing number of middle and upper class Africans were seeking medical help overseas, in places like India, the US and Europe. This growth in outbound medical tourism costs the continent millions of dollars yearly. But the travel restrictions due to covid-19 have emphasized the need for a developed health care system. Entrepreneurs are being challenged to develop medical solutions and explore creative alternatives to solving Africa’s significant healthcare problems. Their efforts will not only transform the continent’s healthcare industry but will unlock millions of job opportunities in the process.
2. Online Education services
The global online education market is projected to be worth $350 billion by 2025. And this number was released pre-COVID-19 pandemic. The projection is likely to be way higher than that because of the change of behavior due to the pandemic. The internet is a catalyst for global education and skill acquisition. And since the COVID-19 outbreak and schools shut-down, online learning has become more accepted.
Coursera, a global e-learning platform, saw drastic growth during the peak of the outbreak with more than 25 million enrollments since mid-march – a 520% increase from the same period last year. Udemy, another online learning platform, also reported 425% increase in enrollments of students and 55% increase in course creation by instructors. These companies probably experienced 5 years worth of growth within 4 months.
This trend is not going away. We are living in a world where skills that was valuable 4 years ago, needs upgrading or re-skilling today. People need to keep up with relevant skills and knowledge. But most people don’t have the time to go back and forth to a brick and mortar institution every year to improve their knowledge. Add to that the fact that traditional education institutions are often too rigid to adapt with the changing economic environment; and you find a perfect opportunity for online education to thrive.
If these options sound too informal for some learners, well there is also a growing trend in education franchising. A report by the World Bank, highlights new commercial opportunities opening up in areas such as franchising and the twinning of academic programmes, which allows students to earn credits for courses from universities outside their country at a fraction of the cost. You’ve probably seen those adverts promising the opportunity to get a UK university degree from the comfort of your home, at the fraction of the cost. International students spend billions of dollars every year studying abroad. These online education services function as franchise or partnership with local agencies to offer similar education to what you will get at a university abroad without needing to worry about travel and associated expenses.
Not only that, there is equally huge opportunities in online learning solutions, tools and technology services for primary, secondary, tertiary and corporate institutions. If the education industry interests you, you want to look further into these opportunities.
3. Agribusiness
According to the President of African Development Bank Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, “the next generation of millionaires and billionaires in Africa will be farmers”. As an investor in agric-business, I’m excited about the prospect of the agribusiness industry. According to the United Nations, Africa’s agribusiness industry is expected to be worth $1 trillion by 2030. By the way, this is not the industry I mentioned in the beginning of this video. We’ll get to that in a moment. Early 2020, a three year old agric-technology startup in Nigeria, acquired a sixteen year old agribusiness. Farmcrowdy, the pioneer of digital Agric-crowdfunding venture in the country acquired Best Foods (L&P), an agribusiness group of over 16 years.
The continent has a huge domestic market, owns 60 percent of the world’s unused arable land, and has abundant labor resources and a favorable climate in most parts. Yet, Africa spends over $30 billion on food imports annually. This is in part due to low local production as well as low yield per input.
For perspective, The Netherlands is the 17th largest economy in the World. Its land area is less than double the size of Rwanda and a population estimate of 17.4 million. Yet this country is the world’s second largest exporter of food. In 2017, the Netherlands exported almost 92 billion dollars worth of agricultural produce. They are able to achieve this by relentlessly focusing on finding innovative ways to produce higher yields with fewer inputs. The agribusiness has enormous potential for growth, particularly in Africa. Businesses that are positioned to access these opportunities have a limitless opportunity to create wealth.
4. Financial technology
The finance industry has created more millionaires in the world than any other industry according to Global Wealth report. But it still has room to create more wealth. In sub- Saharan Africa, only about 34 percent of adults have bank accounts or access to formal financial services after more than 5 decades of banking. However, with the spread of mobile phones and increasing Internet penetration, entrepreneurs are now leveraging technology to deepen financial access in ways the banks never have. There are a wide range of opportunities that are opening up in financial services for online savings accounts, bill payments, online shopping payment, bulk disbursement, international remittances and even access to local and global trading opportunities.
5. Renewable Energy and Energy Storage
The young entrepreneur I mentioned in the beginning of this video, Ifeanyi Orajiaka, is the founder of GVE Group, a renewable energy company providing clean energy solutions and consulting. The renewable energy industry is an attractive trillion dollar industry with enormous growth projection; and for good reasons.
Global warming has been a major topic of discussion across industries in recent times; setting the world on track for the Green Revolution. Some countries are already setting deadlines to phrase off automotive combustion engine vehicles from their roads. Governments and industry leaders are getting to agree on one thing; we need to preserve our planet for future generations. This has created a race among entrepreneurs and corporations to create renewable energy solutions. Elon Musk has been a forerunner of this trend with his companies Tesla and SolarCity.
There is room for enormous growth in the market for solar panels, batteries and inverter manufacturing, sales and installation. Battery recycling is also a lucrative spin off from the solar energy ad0ption and massive demand for batteries. And companies like SolarCity are improving battery technologies for longer energy storage and durability.
It is interesting to note that opportunities in renewable energy are not limited to electricity generation. You don’t need to invent a new product or technology. You can get involved with installation, repair and maintenance, or consulting.
The common trend among these five industries is that they are solving big problems in society. The world needs cleaner energy, better healthcare services; people need to learn, eat and participate in the economy financially. If you will take away one thing from this video, it should be that problems in the society are opportunities in disguise, to create wealth. If you found this video helpful, we’ll appreciate it if you’ll like and share it with someone. If you are yet to subscribe to After School TV, now is a good time to hit the subscribe button. Until next time, YOUR SUCCESS MATTERS!
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