SEED to launch West African innovation centre in Accra
The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) will on July 18, launch its first regional innovation centre in West Africa in Accra to promote economic businesses in the sub-region.
The project aims at stimulating economic opportunities, including job creation, by scaling high-potential local and regional businesses as well as establishing a sustained physical presence with training and resource facilities.
Dr Tralance Addy, Executive Director of SEED made the announcement on Monday when he paid a courtesy call on management of the Ghana News Agency to brief the Agency on the project.
He said the project will involve 30 selected businesses in West Africa drawn from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Senegal among other countries, to begin a customized program designed to address local needs.
The programme will focus on emerging businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start businesses so as to build their capacities to enhance sustainable economic growth.
Dr Addy said the criteria for the selection of companies that would participate in the program would include those that have a focus on Agriculture, Education, Water and Sanitation, Health and Energy.
Earlier in his welcoming remarks, Dr Bernard Otabil, General Manger of GNA applauded the SEED initiative, and indicated that the Agency would continue to support national projects that would lead to socio-economic transformation.
He said the Agency would put its wide network of journalists at the project’s disposal, adding that media organisations that depended on the GNA for news needed to be fed with credible, objective and accurate information that would help transform the society in a positive way.
The General Manager announced that the Agency was introducing new products such as the GNA Mobile, an on-demand access to news and other relevant information. The Agency would also establish a media training centre where journalists who wished to upgrade their professional skills would enroll on various programmes, he added.
Source: GNA