Young entrepreneurs have been urged to develop innovative ways of solving problems around the world.
That, according to the Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand and Marketing at Ghana Standard Chartered Bank PLC, Ms Asiedua Addae, would help create job opportunities for them in order to reduce youth unemployment in the country.
“There are a lot of problems facing our world today which include energy, sustainability, food security, equity and empowerment and climate change. It is important that as young people we try and find solutions to some of the world’s problems and not join the bandwagon of complaining,” she added
Ms Addae made the call during an annual national competition organised by Enactus Ghana in Accra on Thursday.
The competition afforded students the opportunity to showcase their projects and achievements on a national platform and allowed judges drawn from academia and business leaders to assess which team most effectively used entrepreneurial action to impact their communities in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable way.
It was sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank PLC, Absa Ghana and KPMG Ghana; an international auditing firm.
The competition was keenly contested by University of Ghana, Legon; University of Energy and Natural Resources; C.K Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT UTAS); University for Development Studies-Tamale; Sunyani Technical University; Central University College; University of Mines and Technology (UMat) and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
At the end of the competition, four schools made it to the finals with CK-UTAS bagging the first position, KNUST placing second and UMat taking the third position.
The first school is expected to represent Ghana at the 2022 Enactus World Cup in Puerto Rico from October 30 to November 2, 2022
The Board Chairman of Enactus Ghana, Mr Anthony Sarpong, who also doubles as Senior Partner, KPMG said the competition wasm, to offer students opportunity to gain knowledge in entrepreneurial activities with the hope of creating employment for themselves, and transforming lives for people in their communities and beyond.
He said Enactus teams in Ghana had directly impacted over 120,000 people through their community development initiatives and reached over four million from different parts of the country.
Some of the initiatives, he said includedBidiGreen- National Champion where Enactus team transform food waste into smokeless briquettes known as “BidiGreen” to serve as an alternative source of fuel to charcoal, and trains female entrepreneurs to produce and sell them, thus, reducing deforestation and environmental waste.
“Government cannot do it alone and so it is important the youth are trained and offered the opportunity to do things on their own and that is what Enactus Ghana is doing to help reduce the youth unemployment situation in the country,”Mr Sarpong added.
Board member of Enactus Ghana, Mr Kwaku Osei-Sarpong, who was also part of the judges congratulated the best school and urged them to thrive higher by creating their own space of innovation to solve problems across the world.
BY VIVIAN ARTHUR
