The maiden Ho Startup Summit came off successfully at Rotary Community Center, Ho on September 12, 2020. Three teams emerged as winners of the out of the 11 teams that pitched their project ideas on the day.
Team advocate was adjudged the overall winner at the maiden Ho startup summit. The team is made up of Miss Esther Apo Awine, an HND French graduate from Gbewaa College of Education and Mr Hermon Sel Hammah Tettey, a trained teacher from the University of Cape Coast. The two came up with the lademy idea based on their passion to make an impact on education in Ghana.
French, is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. About 77 million people speak french globally. In 2015, approximately 35% of francophone speakers were from Sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana is surrounded by French-speaking countries. However, the average Ghanaian cannot transact business in French. Lademy, an edutech platform seeks to fix this problem. Lademy makes the teaching and learning of French fun, especially for entrepreneurs and students post-COVID.
Team Agbenorxevi came in second on the day. Frustrated about transferring her belongings back home after national service and years of observing the challenge of moving logistics in an engineering company, Rashid Gibril and Mawuli Denteh came up with the Genie idea. Genie is an online platform that digitizes the logistics value chain and also connects everyday people to run errands.
The platform can be accessed by students looking to move their things home after school or into a new residence. Small and Medium Scale Construction firms can use the platform for transporting building materials. Busy professionals can also find genies (errand people) to handle their errand tasks.
Team Dep with project H&A Konnect placed third in the startup pitch competition. Their platform seeks to make it easy for tenants to find accommodation and for landlords to rent out their spaces without involving agents. The team is made of Miss Perfect Elorm Avugla, who has a background in BioMedical Engineering, and Mr Dennis Kotoku, who has a degree in Accounting and Finance.
Speaking at the Summit, Mr Agbenorto Dzodzome Mawuli, the Keynote Speaker stressed on the need for developers to think of ways to monetize their applications at the development stage. “We are no longer in a digital era but an information era. Entrepreneurs need to turn the information into marketable selling point or ideas”, he added. He advised the young developers to understand the difference between need-to-have and nice-to-have when coming up with a business idea and as they step out into the world of entrepreneurship.
The three winning teams took home cash prizes. The overall winner and the 1st Runner up would enrol in a 10 weeks Incubation Program to develop their ideas further. The other teams would be placed with tech firms for a two months internship Program. We believe the opportunity would prepare them for the world of work and full employment.
Congratulation to the winning teams and the entire cohort for completing the six-weeks intensive Web Development Training.