Ghana Tech Lab has held National Acceleration Pitch seventeen (17) businesses drawn from across the country at Accra Digital Center in Ghana’s Capital, Accra.
The National Acceleration program was a six months intensive training for startups in different businesses to enable them present a business pitch at the National Acceleration Summit for a possible investment.
The Acceleration program addresses the demand for quality Business support (with a priority on female-led businesses) towards the provision of high-quality Business Development Services (BDS) to existing businesses.
The program’s cohort was crowned with a Startup pitch and investment forum dubbed “Digitizing Entrepreneurship for Job Creation Opportunities for the Ghanaian Youth.”
It is targeted at tech-driven and tech-enabled startups across the country. Selected startups will receive tailored support through an initial Needs Assessment performed at the beginning of the program to identify gaps within each selected startup’s business model.
The pitch to the judges Lantios Creative was first, Oceans Mall Ghana was the second and Vizta Edu came the third.
Co-lead of the National Acceleration Program, Betty Isliker has said the intention of the National Acceleration Pitch is aimed at investing into the Startup business as well as make it credit worthy at the end of their training.
According to her, “the National acceleration program is a 6 months program which is geared towards promoting the startups put better measures in place to make them credit worthy and to receive investment at the end of the program.”
“Right now the selected startups from the various regions are here to pitch their ideas for a chance to win investments. But more importantly to just expand their network to the investment parlor that is currently here at the program”.
She further called on investors to help build up the startups to be able to create jobs with their businesses.
“We are calling on fellow investors and mentors to assist these startups so that they can better grow in our ecosystem and also be ready for the world for other opportunities in the bigger market,” she added.
On her description of people who are fit for this program she said, “We usually target people who have been in business for 6 months and a maximum of 2 years.”
“But before that we also have a pathway to a sustainable employability project. Which is funded by the Mastercard foundation and it is geared towards providing the youth with relevant skills for them to be able to be competitive in the job market. So from there we believe that after gaining skills not everyone would want a job, so we also push the idea of entrepreneurship. So those that go through the entrepreneurship path also get the chance to come into the acceleration program.
“In the program the only challenges we majorly face is the commitment of the Startups to the program. We believe that we are providing all that will be needed to help them grow. We have partnered with hubs across the country so that you can find somewhere that is close to you. But usually the problem we have is that they are not as committed to the training and everything because everybody is looking for money,” she added.
She however advised that the future applicants and the applicants who just ended their training should not relent in their endeavors.
“I just want to say just keep going. You know that entrepreneurship is not an easy journey but we believe that if you keep on definitely you will hit a jackpot. So just keep on moving on and make use of mentorship as much as possible.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
