The Ghana Tech Lab, a tech firm that is consciously involved in conceiving, nurturing and supporting innovative startups in Ghana, successfully organized another edition of its semi-annual summit dubbed The Ghana Startups Summit last week. The 6th edition of the Ghana Startup Summit took place from the 24th November to 1st December 2022 at the Accra Digital Centre.
Close to 51 startups pitched their ideas and innovations to an experienced panel of Judges, industry investors, government representatives, the media and the general public. The pitches were done across four main pitch events;
- The Ghana Ladies in Tech Summit (GLiTS),
- The School to Startup Summit
- The National Incubation Pitch Day
- The National Acceleration Pitch Day
The Startup summit is a climax of Ghana Tech Lab’s flagship Base Innovation Program and the National Acceleration Program, which are programs under its Pathway to Sustainable Employment Program; an initiative that has the Mastercard foundation, The World Bank and the Ministry of Communication as partners.
The Summit saw about 300 in-person attendees as well a large digital participant across various social media handles. The theme for the 6th edition of the Startup summit was “Digitalising Entrepreneurship for Job Creation Opportunities for the Ghanaian Youth”.
Recap of Events at the 6th Ghana Startup Summit
The official launch of the event was done via a radio interview on Accra based Citi fm on Thursday, 24th November 2022 by Daniel Kwabena Owusu, the Ecosystem Lead and Patrick Godwin Ankrah, an investment associate at the Ghana Tech lab to discuss the contributions and impact of the Ghana Tech labs on startup development as well as a highlight of the key events of the Startup Summit.
On Friday
On Friday, 25th November, The Ghana ladies in Tech Summit (GLiTS) was held. The GLiTs had pitches from 6 startups (that qualified from the various GLiTs communities) to the audience and panel of judges. A tourism focused startup, Savanah Tours emerged as winners with a cash prize of GHS5,000. Fabricplast Ghan and Vergg App were the 1st and 2nd runners-up taking home GHS3,000 and GHS2,000 respectively.
Also, some 14 females who were making impact in the tech ecosystem were honored with various accolades.
On Monday
On Monday, 28th November, 2022 the maiden edition of the School to Startup Summit took place. 3 startups pitched their business ideas and innovations before a panel of Judges made up of Mr Micheal Costa, co-founder of SPARK and Mrs Winnie Dzidonu, Platform Manager of Ayoba, MTN.
Caresport, a heath-tech startup emerged as winners of the Startup Summit with a cash prize of GHS5,000. Caresport proposed innovations in healthcare to swiftly and conveniently provide health support to persons with disabilities, the elderly and other sick patients.
On Wednesday
On Wednesday, 30th November 2022, the National Incubation Pitch Day was held, where 25 startups from the Base Innovation Program, pitched their ideas infront of a panel of judges made up of Mr Farouk Khailann, Mr Solomon Owuraku Ashia and Mr Theophilus Forson.
Samshea, an e-commerce platform from iValley, a startup hub in Damongo in the Savannah region emerged as winners with a cash price of GHS5,000.
Yawofo Daily Care from Duapa Werkspace and Smart Meals from Noni Hub were the first and second runner-ups respectively.
On Thursday
The National Acceleration Pitch Day was held on Thursday, 1st December with pitches from 15 startups from the National Acceleration program. The judges for the day were Leah Nduati, Accelerator specialist with The Room, Daniel Kwakwu Merki, CEO of Boxplay Ventures and Dinah Hammond-Afful, co-founder and Principal Advisor with InvestPro Advisors Limited.
Lanto’s Creative from Icode, a hub based in central region emerged as the winners of the pitch at the end of the event taking home a cash price of GHS10,000. Oceans Mall Ghana limited from 131 Sunflower Hub and Vitza Edu from Ghana Tech lab were the 1st and 2nd runners-up respectively.
The final event of the summit was the graduation of the first batch of startup coaches at the Startup Coach School Graduation Ceremony. After successfully completing 5 training models, the coaches graduated from the school. A total of 11 coaches graduated from the school, 4 were bronze graduates, 6 were silver graduates while there was 1 gold graduate.
Emmanuella Appiah, graduated as the valedictorian of the day and the only gold graduate from the Startup Coach School.
