By Julius K. Satsi/Jesse Owusu Ampah, GNA
Accra, Sept. 27, GNA – Professor Isaac Abeku Blankson, the Board Chair of Innovation Hub, has urged young entrepreneurs with similar business ideas to form partnerships to enable them to leverage on each other’s strength for growth.
He said many young entrepreneurs in the country had similar ideas that could be merged to form a united and formidable company to effectively compete locally and internationally.
Prof. Blankson, also the Vice President of the Ghana Technology University College, said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at the Second Edition of Innovation Hub Start-up Pitch, organised by the Ghana Innovation Hub.
It forms part of the ‘Innov8Gh’ Incubation programme to create an enabling environment for young people to receive or boost their entrepreneurial skills.
The startup pitch is a business platform for young entrepreneurs, who were selected nationwide and were taken through three months of entrepreneurial training, to present their business modules to a panel for a GH¢50,000.00 winning prize.
Prof. Blankson said: “One thing that is lacking among many of our entrepreneurs is partnerships. You could see from the presentations that most of them had similar ideas and startups that they could form partnerships to build a stronger business.”
He urged other young entrepreneurs to join the next batch of training to improve their business ideas and make it globally competitive as well as inculcate prudent financial management into their daily practices.
He said the Government, through the Ministry of Communication, established the Ghana Innovation Hub as a platform to build entrepreneurship skills among young people, urging young entrepreneurs to access the hub more often to learn and grow their businesses.
Prof. Blankson said as a startup all you needed was a good business idea and a good team, adding that young entrepreneurs need not to be worried about their small start but should be focused on the goal.
Mr Ekow Akyin Kwofie, a Co-Manager of the Ghana Innovation Hub, said the pitch was a project of the Government with sponsorship from the World Bank, and a three-month incubation for young entrepreneurs under the Innov8GH programme. hallenge happening earlier this year.
He said the programme, with the first challenge happening earlier this year, aimed at propelling the spirit of entrepreneurship among young people to mitigate youth unemployment.
It has so far trained 15 startups with different entrepreneurial ideas and each startup would receive GH¢6,000.00 seed capital with the ultimate winner receiving GH¢50,000.00.
At the end of the challenge, AyaPrep, a tutorial app that allows students to learn Core Mathematics in their language of choice for maximum understanding, won the competition and took the GH¢50,000.00 seed capital to scale the app up from the current Twi only to other languages.
Mr Scoon Boakye Appiah, the Project Manager of AyaPrep, commended the team members for the efforts, which led to winning the pitch, urging the other competitors not to lose hope but work hard to make their startup dreams a reality.
He said the team had learnt a lot through the three-month training, and called on other young entrepreneurs to participate in the Innov8Gh programme.
He commended the organizer - Government, through the Ministry of Communication - and the sponsors for rolling out the programme to help grow entrepreneurship among the youth.
GNA
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