Your Final Year Project Can Be Your First Startup

By Jacinta Emeka, Success Essien, Adesanya Funmilola, and Oyewumi Adebisi

Have you ever wondered what happens to your final year project after the defence?

For most students at the University of Lagos, that 100-page document is just a hurdle to jump, a caffeinated blur of data and late nights that eventually ends up gathering dust in a faculty library. But what if that pile of paper was actually your first pre-seed stage for a global company?

According to Mr Tekiulai Ayobami Okegbemi, a Growth Architect and Composite Engineer, that dusty project is a massive missed opportunity. To him, an undergraduate thesis is not just a requirement; it’s a goldmine. “Most people see their undergraduate thesis as a waste of time,” Okegbemi said. 

He has noticed that many students even outsource the writing, never realising they are handing away the foundation of a potential business. “In Nigeria, we haven’t seen that synergy between the academia and the industry, but that’s what it should be. The academia should feed the industry with new ideas.”

But before you can sell an idea, you have to own it. This is where things get tricky in the halls of school. Who owns the intellectual property (IP) of a 400-level project? Is it the student who spent months in the lab, or the supervisor who guided the methodology?

Okegbemi points out a reality that many students miss: “On the undergraduate level, most times supervisors use these projects as a foundation or base for works they want to do on a higher ground.” Legally, while you are the author of your thesis, the “invention” within it can sometimes be seen as a joint effort. UNILAG’s own policy through the Innovation and Technology Management Office (ITMO) suggests that if you use substantial university resources or labs, the school might have a stake.

The secret, according to Okegbemi, is transparency and timing. If you feel your work has commercial potential, you need to have the conversation early. “If you go ahead and patent your ideas based on the research you have done, then of course, you are the owner,” he said. The danger lies in publishing your findings in a journal or online before filing for protection. Once it is in the public domain without a patent, you might have just handed your million-dollar idea to the world for free.

He is not just talking theory; he lived it. Back in his university days, Okegbemi spent two years researching recycling and dump sites. That academic curiosity led him to develop a lightweight, non-corrosive material by combining plastics, stone dust, sugarcane fibre, and aluminium. What started as a student idea eventually became a published work on Taylor & Francis with global citations. For him, the project was his proof of work, a leverage point that opened doors in his corporate and professional career.

But how do you take academic jargon and turn it into something a businessman wants to buy? Okegbemi suggests using the “Job to be Done” framework. Investors and industries do not care about your complex formulas as much as they care about their bottom line. “Think about it like this: if your research can shorten a company’s turnaround time from five hours to two, you’ve just made them more money. Now you have their attention.”

For a fresh graduate, the thought of starting a company feels heavy, but Okegbemi believes the startup path is the sweet spot. While licensing patents is usually reserved for high-level professors, building a prototype and testing it is where the real traction lies. “Start it first,” he advised. “Whether you’re pitching to Y Combinator or the Tony Elumelu Foundation, you need to show that you can take a problem, question the status quo, and create a solution that people will actually pay for.”

Ultimately, the message is a wake-up call for the school community: stop seeing your research as a final task and start seeing it as a launchpad. The world is full of content creators making noise, but the industry will always reward those who can sift through that noise to solve a real problem. 

Your name could be written in gold, not just on a certificate, but on the masthead of your own company.