By this, the success stories of the winners will be highlighted at infoDev’s 3rd Global Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Brazil in October 2009, through the launch of an infoDev collection of entrepreneur case studies. Additionally, the work of the winners will be highlighted on iDISC, infoDev’s incubation support center, which receives about 7,000 unique visitors from 161 countries and territories monthly, and on infoDev’s website which receives 11,000 unique visitors from 200 countries and territories monthly.

May we all take this opportunity to congratulate the Management of Equinox Intercom Limited for the achievement and also for bringing honour to the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre and indeed to the Ministry of Communications as well as our partners, the UNDP.

We hope this is just the beginning of bigger happenings. Congratulations to Equinox and to all of you for your support.

Read more about the annoucement here.

Thinking along these lines and realizing that ICT is key to enhancing economic growth, the Government of Ghana established the first of incubation centres in the country at the Ghana House.

The Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre established in 2005 is to promote ICT Entrepreneurship Development through the incubation of ICT business start-ups and to also develop the much needed ICT skills under the government’s ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) initiative. With support from the UNDP and the government through the Ministry of Communications, the centre aids start-ups and young businesses that have ground-breaking and innovative ICT ideas to mature into viable business ventures. The centre provides its tenant companies with office space, utilities, internet access and a shared resources centre which gives them access to various secretarial services. In short, everything a small business needs to get started is made available to our tenants.

In addition, the tenant companies undergo a comprehensive mentoring process, receiving capacity-building from experienced consultants and successful entrepreneurs in such diverse fields as project management, marketing, business plan development, proposal writing and negotiation skills. After periodic monitoring and evaluation of tenants’ performance, successful businesses ‘graduate’ from the Incubator after a stipulated period into the real world.

The Incubator currently houses thirteen (13) tenant-companies who are undertaking various innovative and technological developments from educational software development, vehicle tracking systems, web-based recruitment and advertising systems, intelligent systems, campus automation systems and other.

The Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre also hosts the Business Process Outsourcing Training Centre, the only such facility in the country today. The BPO training centre is concerned with equipping young Ghanaians with the skills necessary for inducing multinational companies to outsource some of their core business processes to Ghana. The training centre gives candidates the skills needed to become Call Centre Operators, Medical Transcriptionists and Data Entry Clerks.

The GMIC currently houses 13 different companies (tenants) who are developing different innovative ICT products and services for the market.

WICENET Ghana Limited, a tenant of the incubator project, recently hit the $100,000.00 revenue mark. WICENET is a technology start-up providing a state-of-the-art entertainment solution that uses their “Triple Play” technology.

This innovative technology makes it possible to deliver data (internet), voice and audio/video (television) as a single package through the primary medium of telephone wires. The company is currently in their fourth (4th) month of the commercialization phase of the incubation cycle at the Centre and has already succeeded the above.

Staff strength has also grown from 6 to 12 during the same period. They have successfully rolled-out their entertainment solution to major players in the Hospitality industry, namely Shangri-La, La Palm, Coco Beach and the Dutch Hotels.

A number of the other companies under incubation at the GMIC are also nearing the commercialization phase and all should be ready for graduation within the second quarter of next year (2008).
They include Real-IT Solutions, developers of a science educational software package for children in both the Upper Primary and Junior High School levels, using animation to explain and teach simple scientific symbols and terms as well as performing simple laboratory experiments taking into account the approved syllabus of the Ghana Education Service.

Another is CBB Solutions Ltd, providers of software for sales, inventory and record identification/tracking solutions using Radio Frequency Identification technology (RFID).
IDZ (www.aponkye.com), an online advertising company, Step Technologies Ltd., a security automation software company, Corporate Management Information Systems (CMIS), providers of an online health delivery system and Makana Ltd who have developed a vehicle tracking system which is being piloted by the UNDP.

Others are Tripod Global Ventures (www.myjobwebgh.com) an online job recruitment and placement company and Equinox Intercom Ltd. providers of an electronic campus solution (e-compus) for students at the tertiary level. Their system is currently being piloted at the Regent University and the Ghana Telecom University.

Mr. Solomon Asante Dartey, the co-ordinator of the Incubator Project has advised the tenants to emulate WICENET’s achievement and to focus on their development. He also thanked the partners of the project (the UDNP and the MOC) for their support to the tenants as well as the Centre so far.

The CIC project, an ICT4D initiative of the Government of Ghana, was begun in order to bridge the ICT divide between the rural and developed areas of Ghana by equipping the rural areas with ICT infrastructure, training and access to information.

Its implementation took the form of construction of the physical centres by the Ministry of Local Government, provision of ICT equipment by the Ministry of Communications and information and content development and management by the Ministry of Information and National Orientation.

This type of inter-ministerial group effort is perhaps the first of kind, and the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre was pleased to be a part of this ground-breaking partnership by hosting the two Capacity-Building Programmes for Information Officers for the CICs.

The training programmes were held using the GMIC’s state-of-the-art ICT Labs and lasted for two weeks each in their entirety. During the course of the programmes, a total of 60 District Information Officers were equipped with skills in ICT usage, multimedia packaging and e-journalism. The aim of the programme was to enable the officers to partner with the CICs in the districts to develop information in a digital format and disseminate it to the citizens in the district.

At the conclusion of the training programme, a closing ceremony was organised during which the director of GMIC, Mr. Solomon Asante-Dartey, urged the participants to employ their newly-gained knowledge in educating the districts and encouraging ICT innovation in Ghana from the grassroots level.

At a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor, the partners involved in the programme explained that majority of the students, despite their academic excellence, lack the essential business skills to promote and market their finished products and to document their work using international standards and procedures. According to them, the introduction of the pre-incubation concept was to help overcome these shortcomings and to ensure a smooth implementation of an incubation process by which students or tenants might have been well trained and informed to take on such challenges.

In a follow up meeting with members from GMIC and UNDP, the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences, Prof. I.K. Dontwi, said that the whole pre-incubation programme will go through five major processes including putting up necessary infrastructure, identifying and selecting tenants, training of tenants and other stakeholders, uploading content, and launching of the programme which will include an exhibition of products by tenants who have already gone through the pre-incubation and incubation processes. He said that they have designed the pre-incubation programme in such a way that after its due course, participants would be able to start their own small enterprises with the right procedures and tools, enroll in the incubation programme at GMIC or any other incubator, and secure ICT-related jobs that provide them with financial stability and professional advancement.

Prof. Dontwi pointed out that the target group for the programme are third and final year students from the College of Science and the College of Engineering. He said that a management committee of about 3-5 members has been set up to ensure the progress and sustainability of the programme.

Mrs. Barbara Gbologah-Quaye, country representative of Citizens Development Corp, under the auspices of IBM Ghana, said that they also intend to add their quota to the development of the programme by providing experts and equipment to facilitate the success of the programme.

The programme which focuses on creative thinking, business training, technical writing, and career awareness will see professionals and experts from industry address key issues and serve as role models.

Source: URO

Mr. Fredrick Ampiah, UNDP Partnership Advisor, said his outfit had over the past three years supported the government in establishing the community information centre project, the Ghana Business Incubator and Business Process out sourcing project and E-Governance Project, all ICT initiatives designed to mitigate the wide social barriers and digital gaps for the attainment of inclusive socio-economic development and other national goals.He said the software would not only provide students with alternative sources of tuition and enhance the learning of science and mathematics, but would also stimulate in students the urge of solving educative puzzles as a preferred alternative after school activities.

Miss Vida Ackom, Chief Executive officer of the company, said the software was developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Communication, the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre (GMIC) the Ghana Investment Fund for Telecommunication (GIFTEL) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).The software uses animation to demonstrate scientific processes which would make the child to appreciate the subject.

Mr. Solomon Asante Dartey, Project Co-ordinator of GMIC, said the centre sought to promote ICT entrepreneurship development through the incubation of ICT business skills under the government’s “ICT for accelerated development” initiative. The centre aids business start-ups with ICT innovative ideas to mature into viable business ventures,” he stated.

Mr. Robert Quainoo-Arthur, Mfantseman Municipal Chief Executive, urged teachers of senior high schools in the municipality to patronize the software.

Source: GNA