The winner of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Young Entrepreneurs Forum (YEF) Business Pitching Session has been selected to partake in the Centre’s investment missions abroad, in a bid to gain exposure and meet prospective investors, CEO of the Centre, Yofi Grant has said.
“The first winner we will personally sponsor to go with us on one investment trip to meet foreign direct investors; and it is important, because people need to understand the language of the investor and build them up for that, and to use them as good test cases,” he told B&FT at the presentation of prizes to winners of GIPC’s 3rd Edition of the Young Entrepreneurs Forum (YEF) in Accra.
Service Hub Limited, the company behind Trimerstersave (health-tech project) emerged the winner with a cash prize of GH₵5,000, followed by Omama Foods (agro-processing) receiving GH₵3,000; and Divine Brainz Limited (agro-processing) picking up GH₵2,000.
Among the prizes were included a one-day entrepreneurship masterclass for the finalist, and an extended mentoring and coaching support by Stanbic bank.
Aside from GIPC’s cash prize and sponsorship for the winner to join its investment mission, ‘Quick Angels’, it has offered to invest GH₵100,000 as equity for the top-3.
After the successful organisation of this year’s YEF Business Pitching Session, the Centre offered to award the top-three winners with a cash prize of GH₵10,000.
According to Mr. Grant, the YEF is intended to harness young people into businesses in a way that supports them from being entrepreneurs to becoming actual businesses.
“It is something we do with pride, so that we can elevate the status of young entrepreneurs and inspire them to be bigger and better. Prizes are supposed to help them and shape their businesses better.”
The 3rd Edition of the Young Entrepreneurs Forum (YEF) was held on July 30th and 31st at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra, on the theme ‘Connect Accelerate Grow: Breaking Boundaries’.
One of the main objectives of the forum is to promote dialogue between young entrepreneurs and government, to influence policy formulation and provide leadership and entrepreneurship training for young entrepreneurs.
Highlights of the event included an exhibition and opportunity for 13 young entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to fund managers during the business pitch session. There were also Master Class and mentoring sessions for selected participants.
Having scrutinised all presentations, the top-3 three brilliant winners were unanimously selected based on the viability of their business ideas, strategy, market opportunity, and financial strength among others.
They were granted automatic progress into the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme; one month at the MEST Accra Incubation Centre; and a 1-hour consulting session with the MD this month.
Source: B&FT Online
