The University of Ghana, through the Institute of Applied Science and Technology in partnership with the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Ghana organized a webinar on the 21^st of October 2021. The webinar brought together experts in academia and industry to share their perspectives on the fundamental pillars needed to drive innovation and entrepreneurship within the context of higher education and job creation. Mr. Bernard Avle, a journalist of Citi Fm moderated the programme. He began by welcoming participants and highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial and innovation skills for job creation in the country, emphasizing ongoing discussions in the media space about the unemployment among the youth and the inability of the public sector to absorb these unemployed youth due to financial constraints.

The Director of the Institute of Applied Science and Technology, Prof. Oduro Nkansah in his opening address, welcomed the discussant and participants across the world to the University platform. According to him, the topic for the discussion of the webinar was “Advancing Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Job Creation: The Role of Higher Education”. He continued that, as the topic connotes, innovation has become a key driver for economic growth and many agencies and bureaus have focused on nurturing innovation, developing advanced manufacturing in their countries and increasing exports to the world. He also added that this webinar was an indication that the University of Ghana, through the Institute was supporting innovation and entrepreneurship especially amongst students, alumni and other stakeholders to strengthen regional economies, create jobs and keep Ghana competitive. The UGEIP, according to Prof. Oduro Nkansah is an initiative by the University of Ghana in partnership with GEN-G to re-position the University as an entrepreneurial institution, training students to be entrepreneurial leaders to impact society positively, and solve many socio-economic challenges including job creation. He added that the UGIEP seeks to harness all the innovation hubs at the University of Ghana and further strengthen its entrepreneurial training through extracurricular activities. Prof. Nkansah informed the participants that the programme was launched in August 2021 by the Vice President of Ghana, H.E. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo.

The moderator then introduced the panelists for the interactions, who were from both the academia and entrepreneurial ecosystems. They were:

• Prof. Kanes Rajah                               Executive Director, CEPD London
• Dr. George Acheampong                    Senior Lecturer, UGBS
• Mrs. Amma Sefa Dede Lartey            CEO, Impact Investing Ghana
• Mr. Elikem Kuenyehia                       Entrepreneur and Lawyer
• Nii Kwashie Aryeetey                        Inventor and Innovation Strategist

The panel explored the interrelationships between higher education, innovation, and entrepreneurship, to answer the following questions:

1. What is the role of higher education and higher education institutions in innovation and entrepreneurship?
2. Does Ghana’s current educational structure address the skills gaps and cater to future entrepreneurs and innovators?
3. How can higher education institutions be the magnet that attracts and nurture the best entrepreneurial talent and churn out the most relevant innovations to propel the economy?

Prof. Kanes Rajah started his submission with a quote from Aristotle, "The roots to education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet". This quote according to him, is still real but in contrast to the situation in the African context, especially Ghana, where young people spend so much on education and have no jobs after completion of their education. These are some of the bitter experiences currently facing the youth. He emphasized the need for skills to be taught at the university level to add value to students and the need for the universities to change from the old ways of teaching to new approaches that enable the youth to create their businesses. He, therefore, emphasized that vocational and technical skills should be bought to the Universities.

Mr. Kuenyehia shared his experiences of teaching his students with no single entrepreneurial book on the Ghanaian context. This was a challenge until he authored and published such books to provide practical examples for students. He added that there is the need for easy access to the tools for learning and acquiring skills.

Dr. Acheampong also indicated that there is the need for a change of mindsets especially among students who should be willing to acquire commercial skills. He also spoke about effectualisation and how to mobilize resources and why it takes a lot of time to achieve this. He also highlighted the challenges of having large number of students in the public universities. He said that at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), for instance, they had introduced the Student Inter-departmental programme where students of UGBS are paired with students from other departments to work on a project. He also suggested that Makerspaces can be established for students.

Mrs. Amma Lartey, in her submission, narrated the story of Israel Yeboah, C.E.O of Glitch Technology, who while a student at the University of Energy and Natural Resources developed a content management system for his university. She added that with the needed push from the telecom company that was organizing the innovation challenge at the time, Mr. Yeboah was given the needed support for a startup. This included coaching and mentoring him to become a bigger brand. Today his company develops content management systems for the Free SHS programme. Mrs. Lartey stated that Mr. Yeboah achieved this because the supportive ecosystems were in place to aid in transforming his entrepreneurial skills into commercial skills. Mrs. Lartey concluded by saying that she was happy about the University of Ghana’s entrepreneurial programme, most especially its partnership with the Global Entrepreneurship Network on entrepreneurship, because the latter had a lot of experience in the area of startups, mentoring and coaching.

Mr. Nii Kwashie Aryeetey also spoke about governments creating the enabling environment for citizens to create and add values. He added that he agreed with Mrs. Lartey that for a successful entrepreneurial programme, there is the need for ecosystems that will help in the funding, planning, and the marketing aspects of the business and not only the passion for it. Mr. Nii Aryeetey stated that there is also the need for partnerships. He cited examples from MIT in the United States where incubators are set up by companies and communities with funding arrangements to help student startups which lead to successful entrepreneurial outcomes such as angel investors and banks coming in to help with the financing. He also talked about some inherent qualities in individuals and noted that with the help of higher education institutions, they will be guided to become successful entrepreneurs.

In furtherance to the discussions, Prof. Rajah advised that the Government needs to adopt innovative ways to encourage the development of small businesses in the informal sector into formal micro-businesses through tax waivers. This according to him will help to reduce the high unemployment in the country. He also cited examples from the University of Malaysia where students acquire entrepreneurial skills by managing all commercial activities on campus and admonished that the same idea could be replicated at the University of Ghana.

Mr. Kuenyehia suggested that there is the need for local content that fits into our situation rather than depending on western ideas.

Dr. Acheampong also spoke about the reintroduction of students’ apprenticeship, which enables students to acquire basic entrepreneurial skills.

According to the Prof. Nkansah, the Institute is solving some of the challenges being discussed by conducting Students’ Challenge on different themes and disciplines as part of the makerspace programme. He added that about twenty CEOs had been recruited to mentor students. He also indicated that the ideas on embedding vocational skills into students’ learning were already ongoing and cited initiatives for learning sewing and watch repairing through extra curriculum activities as part of some of the programmes the IAST was working towards.

He added that the conscious implementation of innovation and entrepreneurship concepts leading to talent hunts and subsequent job creation had proven to be one of the biggest drivers of the progress and creativity the world had seen among the highly educated. It has, therefore, become imperative for Higher Education Institutions, especially the universities which are the citadels of knowledge creation to play a coordinating role as key agents in advancing innovation and entrepreneurship.

Hosts:          Institute of Applied Science & Technology, University of Ghana

                    Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) – Ghana

Moderator:     Mr. Bernard Avle