The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), Mr. Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, has stated that one of the greatest achievements and legacy he wants to leave behind is to establish an act to regulate the programme.
According to him, the NEIP is currently working on an act called the Ghana Innovation and Startup Act that will regulate the program to ensure its sustainability and stand the test of time.
Speaking to the Republic Press, Mr. Nkansah said the programme is being operated by an executive instrument, adding that the management is working on an act that is in the draft stage and will be ready by the close of next year.
He said when he took over as the CEO of the programme, there was much focus on entrepreneurship, neglecting the innovation aspect, so “I decided to focus attention on innovation because that is scalable and has the potential to grow.”
“As part to ensure that, we introduce the High School Innovative Challenge, Hackathon competition and National Innovation Challenge to unearth talents in the innovation industry to solve the socioeconomic problems,” he stated.
The CEO said another area of interest is to help Ghana register their innovative ideas and patents at the World Intellectual Property Organization, like the Asians, the Japanese, and the Americans are doing, so that anywhere in the world if that idea is developed, the inventor will gain financial benefits.
On the issue of NEIP, Ghana Enterprise Agency, and Youth Employment Programme performing similar functions, the CEO said NEIP’s main objective is to provide training, business development services, capacity building, mentoring, funding, and access to market linkages to all startups in the country.
He said the initiative has been a key catalyst in realizing the vision of building an inclusive, integrated, innovative, and conducive ecosystem for entrepreneurs in the country.
Mr. Nkansah said since the inception of the program, it has created over 100,000 jobs through its various initiatives, such as the Presidential Pitch, High School Innovative Contest, National Innovation Contest, and a host of other initiatives all aimed at providing support to start-ups businesses to grow and become unicorns.
He said last year alone, the program created at least 400,000 jobs for Youth Innovation in Agriculture to Youth Employment Agency employees who were exiting the program with the aim that “if they go out and they don’t secure jobs, they can use what they learned to create their own jobs.”
Mr. Nkansah revealed that the programme is supported by the government of Ghana and that all their initiatives are grants. What it means is that the monies are grants, and the beneficiaries are not supposed to pay them back but want such businesses to grow and give employment to Ghanaians.
He called on all Ghanaian youth to take advantage of their various initiatives because the like of Facebook, Instagram, LG, Samsung and others were innovative ideas started by Asians, Americans and the likes of Arabs.
