Ghana Tech Lab Releases Startup Mapping Findings

Mohammed Zakaria, Policy, Governance & Regulation Lead at GTL explaining the methodology of the research.

GHANA TECH Lab (GTL), a tech and innovation hub that seeks to drive the digital transformation of Ghana by helping young people acquire technological skills, has released its findings under the Ghana Startup Ecosystem Mapping for the year 2020.

The study aimed at building a stronger ecosystem by identifying and enabling startups, entrepreneurs, and other relevant stakeholders in the country while measuring the nature and level of Ghana’s startup ecosystem.

At a press engagement held Wednesday on the GTL premises, key findings from the study which covered 13 out of the 16 regions indicated that Cape Coast [Central Region], Ho [Volta Region], and Wa [Upper West Region] are the top three emerging cities in Ghana’s startup ecosystem.

Methodolgy

Policy, Governance & Regulation Lead at GTL, Mohammed Zakaria disclosed that the ranking spanned six pillars namely, Media, Women & Culture; Human Capital; Support & Infrastructure; Policy, Governance & Regulation; Access to Finance; and Access to Markets.

These key startup ecosystem indicators and players, he explained, were aggregated in an index that ranked from 1st to 13th place in terms of the nature and level of the entrepreneurial startup ecosystem in Ghana.

Mr. Zakaria added that the ranking would enable the regional startup ecosystems across Ghana to discover unique and strategic opportunities through relevant information and findings to access networking, startup skills, cultural support, process innovation, risk acceptance, technology absorption, and high growth, which serve as key elements used in the analysis of the data gathered.

Women, Media & Culture

Emelia Enyonam Kuleke, Media, Women and Culture Lead, on her part disclosed that over 3000 companies, institutions, and firms were mapped, captured, and interacted with during the programme, adding that the findings would propel deep conversations on strengthening Ghana’s Startup Ecosystem by engaging all stakeholders, especially on policy, to shape and develop Ghana’s startup ecosystem for better participation on the part of all stakeholders for development.

Transformation

Managing Associate at GTL, Edward Akani said his outfit seeks to drive the digital transformation of Ghana by helping young people acquire technological skills and that the initiative comes as one of the steps towards realizing this and other objectives of the company.

He intimated that the company had successfully trained over 1000 people and incubated and accelerated over 100 startups nationwide, adding that it is their desire to lead the conversation of digital transformation in Ghana, build the needed infrastructure and help people know and understand what the ecosystem is like.

Mapping Program

The Ghana Startup Ecosystem Mapping forms part of the Pathways to Sustainable Employment (PaSE) Project funded by Mastercard Foundation under the Young Africa Works initiative (YAW) which seeks to create three million jobs in Ghana by 2030.

A total of 17 ecosystems [3557 organizations and 1000+ startups] across the country were successfully mapped mapped during the exercise.

The event also saw the launch of the ‘Ghana Startup Ecosystem Mapping magazine’ which has a more detailed report on the findings.

By Nii Adjei Mensahfio

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