The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria has a new flagship programme, and this one is aimed squarely at young Nigerians trying to turn ideas into businesses that actually survive.
SMEDAN announced the Building Resilient Young Nigerian Entrepreneurs Project, known by its acronym BRYNE, as part of activities marking International Youth Day 2026. The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the agency, Charles Odii, disclosed the initiative in a statement released by SMEDAN’s Corporate Affairs Unit on Friday, and the numbers behind it are hard to ignore: more than 100,000 young Nigerians are expected to benefit every single year.
What exactly is BRYNE?
BRYNE is not a single grant scheme or a one-off training workshop. It is a bundle of four separate interventions stitched together under one umbrella, designed to catch young entrepreneurs wherever they happen to be, in a community workshop, on a university campus, or scrolling their phone at midnight.
Odii explained the thinking behind it plainly. “Across the country, we meet young people with ideas, skills and businesses that can grow, but many still struggle to find the right support at the right time,” he said. “BRYNE brings several of those opportunities together, from training and incubation to finance, markets and mentorship.”
That “right support at the right time” line is really the whole pitch. Nigeria has no shortage of young people with business ideas. What it has historically lacked is a coordinated system that follows a founder from idea to functioning enterprise, rather than dropping them into a single training session and wishing them luck.
The four channels: how BRYNE actually works
Bimpe Fawale, Deputy Director and Head of SMEDAN’s Women and Youth Unit, broke down the structure of the programme, and each of the four channels targets a different kind of entrepreneur.
1. SMEDAN Incubation Programme (SIP): This channel will support 600 young entrepreneurs annually, with a focus on sectors like fashion, woodwork and agriculture. It runs through SMEDAN’s existing network of Industrial Development Centres scattered across the country, so participants get access to physical workspace and equipment, not just advice on a slide.
2. Campus Enterprise Engagement Platform: Built in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education, this one takes the programme directly into tertiary institutions. Expect business workshops, advisory sessions, networking events and exhibitions where student-owned businesses can actually show what they’ve built. SMEDAN is targeting up to 3,000 participants per participating campus, so students already running a side hustle out of their hostel room have a real shot here.
3. BRYNE Digital Connect: For young entrepreneurs who aren’t near an Industrial Development Centre or a partner campus, this online arm offers entrepreneurship education, innovation support and market connections through digital platforms. It’s the piece designed to reach people in states and towns the physical channels can’t cover as easily.
4. Weekly Startup Hackathons: This is arguably the most immediately rewarding channel. SMEDAN plans to run weekly hackathons targeting 5,000 young entrepreneurs in total, with 52 winners selected across the year, one per week. Each weekly winner walks away with ₦250,000 in seed funding. Beyond the cash, winners and other participants are expected to get links to business formalisation, further funding, mentorship, investors, and even export opportunities.
Who is eligible?
SMEDAN has not yet released a detailed eligibility document specific to BRYNE, since the programme was only unveiled days ago. Based on how the agency has structured similar past initiatives, and the language used by Odii and Fawale in the launch statement, the programme is broadly aimed at:
- Young Nigerians with existing small businesses in sectors such as fashion, woodwork, agriculture and other MSME categories
- Young Nigerians with business ideas who haven’t started yet but want structured support to launch
- Undergraduates and students running or planning campus-based businesses
- Digitally active young entrepreneurs who can engage with the BRYNE Digital Connect platform from anywhere in the country
Given that SMEDAN’s existing programmes generally prioritise registered businesses, it would be sensible for interested applicants to register on the SMEDAN portal now rather than wait for the BRYNE-specific eligibility criteria to drop. A profile on the portal already puts you in the agency’s database, and several of SMEDAN’s past programmes have leaned on that same database when selecting participants.
Benefits of the BRYNE programme
Strip away the branding and the benefits on offer are genuinely substantial for a young founder without deep pockets or connections:
- Free enterprise training and business development support
- Incubation space and equipment access through Industrial Development Centres
- Mentorship from experienced professionals
- Direct market linkages
- Seed funding of ₦250,000 for weekly hackathon winners
- Pathways to formalisation, additional funding, and investor connections
- Exposure to export opportunities for businesses ready to scale beyond Nigeria
For a lot of applicants, the seed funding will be the headline grabber, but the mentorship and market access components matter just as much in the long run. Plenty of young Nigerian businesses fail not because the founder lacks a good product, but because nobody showed them how to price it, register it properly, or find their first real customers outside friends and family.
How to apply
Here’s the part that will frustrate anyone hoping to start their application today: SMEDAN has not yet opened a dedicated BRYNE application portal. The programme was only unveiled this week, and the agency has indicated that specific application links, deadlines and forms are still being finalised.
In the meantime, here’s what interested young entrepreneurs should actually do:
- Register on the SMEDAN portal at portal.smedan.gov.ng if you haven’t already. Many SMEDAN programmes draw from entrepreneurs already registered in the system, so this is not a step to skip.
- Check the official SMEDAN website regularly at smedan.gov.ng, particularly the “Our Programs” and news sections, where BRYNE-specific announcements are expected to appear.
- Follow SMEDAN’s verified social media accounts, including its X (formerly Twitter) handle @SMEDANGov, for real-time updates on registration links and calls for applications.
- Watch for campus announcements if you’re a student, since the Campus Enterprise Engagement Platform will likely roll out through partnerships with individual tertiary institutions rather than a single national form.
- Prepare your documentation early. Basic business information, a clear description of what you do or plan to do, and evidence of your sector (fashion, agriculture, woodwork, tech, etc.) will almost certainly be requested once applications open.
Reasons for this
Nigeria’s youth unemployment numbers have been a persistent headache for successive governments, and entrepreneurship has increasingly become the fallback plan for graduates who can’t find formal jobs. Whether BRYNE moves the needle in any meaningful way will depend entirely on execution, not the announcement. SMEDAN has run youth-focused initiatives before, and the honest track record is mixed: some participants get real value, others complain about slow disbursements or unclear communication after the initial excitement fades.
Odii, for his part, framed the ambition simply. “We want more young Nigerians to have a fair chance to build businesses that can survive, grow and create jobs,” he said.
Whether that fair chance translates into functioning, job-creating businesses a year from now is the question worth watching. For now, the smartest move for any young Nigerian entrepreneur reading this is to get registered on the SMEDAN portal and keep an eye on the agency’s official channels, because when the BRYNE application window does open, it’s unlikely to stay open for long given the scale of interest a programme like this tends to attract.
