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Today’s Options will become Tomorrow’s Requirements!

November 5, 2010, Accra, Ghana - Entrepreneurs play a critical role in the starting and establishing small business opportunities in Africa. However, a number of newly-established ventures in developing economies fade out in the early stage of business, within 42 months. There are multi-prong challenges including access to information and new skills which contribute to this failure. In response to these challenges, the University of Ghana Business School, Ghana, and The PearlRichards Foundation (www.pearlrichards.org), Ghana organized the 2010 Ghana Internet and Mobile Entrepreneurs' Forum (GIMEF 2010). The event was co-sponsored by CitiFM, Craft Concepts, Promasidor Ghana, and PC Tech Magazine, Uganda. The forum convener, Dr. Richard Boateng, explained that the forum was birthed from a graduate MBA class project aimed at creating a space for interaction and learning between students and real world technology entrepreneurs. The theme was “Building Ghana through Internet Enterprises and Mobile innovations”.

The forum took place at the University of Ghana Business School. An audience of up 180 students, researchers, lecturers, practitioners and entrepreneurs had an opportunity to share, discuss and learn from individual career experiences and profiles of Ghanaian Internet and Mobile entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs who challenged the dreams and aspirations of the students were:

• Charles Nii Ayiku Ayiku, Funerals in Ghana (www.funeralsinghana.com)
• Tetey Sylvester, Levels Multimedia (www.levelsmultimedia.com)
• Aisha Obuobi, Christie Brown (www.facebook.com/ChristieBrownGH)
• Dr. Longe Bankole-Phillips Ayodeji , Graig Phillips Geosciences, Canada and Nigeria, (Cyber crime Entrepreneurship)
• Dr. Longe Olumide, University of Ibadan, Nigeria and NEPAD Cybercrime Head, (Cyber crime Entrepreneurship)
• John Totoe, Mobile Content Ghana (www.mobilecontent.com.gh)
• Carl Ashie, Zap Money, Zain Ghana Ltd
• George Graham, Craft Concepts Limited
• Edward Amartey-Tagoe, NandiMobile Limited (www.nandimobile.com)
• Benard Otabil, Esoko Ghana (www.esoko.com)
• Florence Toffa, Mobile Web Ghana (www.webfoundation.org)
• Opoku Afriyie-Asante, OLPCORPS Ghana - One Laptop Per Child Project Corps Ghana
• Adwoa Perbi, Afro-Chic, (www.afrochiconline.com)

Opening the event, Dr. Kofi A. Osei, the Acting Dean of the University of Ghana Business School, expressed the support of the institution for the event and intimated that, this should not be a one-off event, and should be an annual forum for interaction between technology entrepreneurs, students and the academic community. The presenters made contributions on their experiences in starting up and addressing challenges. Sylvester Tetey of Levels Multimedia emphasized that young entrepreneurs should learn to focus, volunteer and save money during the start up stage. John Totoe of Mobile Content Ghana, emphasized the need to collaborate and share ideas with other technology entrepreneurs in order learn and also test one’s idea(s) before launching out.  Dr. Longe Olumide, speaking on cybercrime, cautioned young entrepreneurs on “get rich quick” schemes and apparent gullibility from desperateness associated with start-up. Such individuals usually fall prey to tricks of cyber crime entrepreneurs or the “Yahoo boys” as they are known in some countries. Adwoa Perbi of Afro-Chic, challenged the participants in using the Internet to market made in Ghana products. She concluded the event with the advice that “Today’s options will become tomorrow’s requirements”, hence the need to take advantage of today.  The audience was also awed by Opoku-Afriyie Asante and his OLPCorps team with demonstrations of One Laptop Per Child project.