August 10, 2016
10 Most Innovative Social Enterprises in Ghana
Over the past years, there has been a surge in the number of social enterprises in Ghana. The last 2 to 3 years has seen no shortage of them. It has been the “the battle of the SE’s” ranging from diverse backgrounds; food and agriculture, technology, telecommunications, media, fashion, finance, business, sanitation and education. This is proof that more and more people, especially the youth have become very passionate about using social enterprise models to solve the socio-economic and unemployment issues that the country face. Below I have compiled a comprehensive list of 10 most innovative social enterprises that have combined research and innovation to create jobs and opportunities to combat social issues while placing Ghana on the map.
Asoriba: The innovative start-up that is making news in Ghana and even across the globe, Africa’s Best Startup at the recently held Seedstars World event in Casablanca, Morocco. Founded by four young Christian brothers who saw the need to bridge the gap between the church and its members by creating an app where members can get involved in church activities wherever they are in the world. Whether it is paying your tithes or offering, downloading devotion, checking events updates or making a donation Asoriba Church Solutions has you covered.
mPedigree: The leading name in the use of mobile and web-based technologies in securing products against counterfeiting, faking and diversion. Their unique and innovative service provides people with the opportunity to verify the validity and authenticity of products. Their “Goldkeys” platform has become one of the surest ways of validating your product. Millions of products on the market these days are gold keys certified; verification is done via sms or web by sending the code on the product to a short code, then waiting for a validation feedback. mPedigree has partnered with many organizations including pharmaceutical, textiles and agricultural companies to bring to customers real products and experiences. Awards received by mPedigree include, West African Mobile Award 2016, Innovation in the Industry Award, Nokia Health Award etc. The Ghanaian company has regional offices in India and Kenya with the headquarters in Ghana.
Boomers International: Boomers International is the leading producer of bamboo products and accessories in Ghana. Their flagship and most successful venture so far are the boomers international bikes founded by Kwabena Danso. This venture aims to curb unemployment by creating opportunities and sustainable livelihood job skills through the building of high quality hand crafted second generation bamboo bikes for international exports. Originally marketed as the calfee bikes, the boomers international bikes are uniquely and strongly built, lightweight and antibacterial, can withstand harsh weather and road conditions, can be used for both commercial and personal purposes and are tailor made to suit the different needs of every individual. Not only does this initiative create jobs for the youth, but also provides financial support to under privileged school children in most rural areas.
Koko King: The purveyors of fine food. Founded by Albert Osei a banker by profession. He made the bold move of venturing into social enterprise and it has served him well. He identified a need and served it to full capacity. This well known enterprise is into the production of koko (local porridge) and all types of pudding to suit the breakfast needs of young professionals. His puddings come in branded cups and bags, with milk, sugar and peanuts and are delivered at your doorstep. Koko King has employed a valuable number of young people who sell on the streets using the customized Koko King motorcycles.
Zaacoal: Sulley Amin Abubakar founded Zaacoal to tackle some socio-economic issues that arise due to the use of our traditionally made charcoal. His goal was to address health issues such as lung diseases and other respiratory problems by producing smoke free, odorless, economical, sustainable and homogenous heat production through naturally derived coal. Zaacoal uses waste materials from coconut sellers in Ghana which they find difficult to dispose due to improper waste management system in the country. Zaacoal’s groundbreaking venture not only solves the issue of youth unemployment in Ghana but also addresses waste management issues. Their vision for the future is to become a household name in every home in Ghana and Africa at large.
Heel the World: Officially launched in Ghana by CEO Fred M. Deegbe. Another one of my personal favorites, “A True Ghanaian Heritage” as I call it. The shoes made by this company are handmade with raw materials from Ghana. He has employed quite a number of young men and women who meticulously work round the clock to produce these beautifully designed shoes. Heel the world not only graced us with their shoe making abilities but also partook in several social and youth empowerment programs including “the be your own boss” initiative; where he collaborated with Zhest consultancy to train aspiring entrepreneurs on how to grow their business, “the master craftsmanship”; where about a 100 young people enrolled in vocational institutions to study leatherworks and collaborating with other startups to feed and motivate school children across Ghana. Due to its outstanding success in the industry, Heel the World won the presidential award for best young fashion company in Ghana in 2013, became a member of the World Economic Forum and African Leadership Network, featured on media platforms; BBC, CNN and Aljazeera.
Wazuri Ghana: In Ghana coconut selling is commonplace for many under privileged youth especially men. It has in recent years become a thriving sector for the agricultural industry in Ghana. The 20 year old Adowarim Lugu-Zuri capitalized on this revelation by creating an innovative coconut sales and distribution company that is Wazuri. She has engaged many of these young men in her coconut sales and distributions company. She has several acres of coconut plantation in some two regions in Ghana and supplies 5000 pieces of coconut to customers weekly.
Moringa Connect: founded by Kwami Williams and Emily Cunningham who capitalized on the many benefits of the moringa tree to create Moringa Connect. Their research and knowledge on the moringa plant has benefitted many small scale farmers from the north and across Ghana; the initiative has served as a platform to train, provide food and financial support to them. They have trained and worked closely with these farmers to produce some of the best products on the market. Their flagship product True Moringa has gained success both locally and internationally. They have supported over 1600 small scale farmers throughout Ghana and have planted about 250, 000 moringa trees. Their goal is to become global leaders in the production of moringa natural beauty products and food supplements.
Farmerline: An initiative led by Aloysius Attah and Emmanuel Owusu Addai to solve communication issues faced by small scale farmers in Ghana. Farmerline is a web based mobile communication service provider supported by some renowned farmer-based organizations and ngo’s to provide key information to drive farmer operations in Ghana and beyond. The platform provides farmers and even fishermen with improved information access and better communication services on their mobile phones in any local language; they are able to send and receive messages such as weather forecasts alerts, market prices, new farming techniques, agrochemical applications and inputs etc. at a subsidized fee. The platform also provides advisory services to farmers. The main aim of the company is to empower the Ghanaian farmer and make farming easier.
Clean Team Ghana: an innovative social enterprise that provides sanitary solutions to low income urban folk in developing countries. They provide people without toilet facilities access to clean and safe toilets to reduce open defecation and improve sanitation in the country. The company was established in 2011, and have made tremendous impact on society by creating employment, removed tons of sludge from the Kumasi metropolis and provided people with access to clean, portable and human centered designed toilets. Clean Team Ghana has employed about 40 people, installed and freely rented out over 1000 toilets in Kumasi where they operate. The users of these toilets however pay a small monthly subscription service fee which includes collection of waste etc.
This post was written by Kofi Yeboah and Priscilla Naa Djamah Armah.
August 16, 2017
Do Young Ghanaian Entrepreneurs Build Start-ups to Survive or to Create Impact?
Few weeks ago, I had a very interesting conversation with Sesinam Dagadu, a well respected young Ghanaian tech entrepreneur and creator of the Snoocode navigation app, about the start-up ecosystem in Ghana. I asked of his views on why many promising start-ups spring up in Ghana, but go extinct in about 3-5 years of operation.
He said, “you know what? Many young Ghanaian innovators innovate to survive. In other words, they are motivated to innovate to be able to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families. They don’t innovate only because they have the passion for what they are doing or to help solve societal problems”.
Rasheeda Yehuza, founder of Nasara Tech, also argues that “there’s nothing wrong with building a business to survive if you do not have a safety net. In fact, it’s commendable that instead of looking for a job, an entrepreneur is willing to fight for what they believe in while struggling to eat. I don’t know the statistics, but I’m sure on average more startups fail yearly in the established markets than the whole of Africa combined… In developed markets they have the flexibility to test the waters, make connections and find a job in a a reputable company if their startup fails, because, when that person’s startup failed, there’s so much to learn from them’. Over here we don’t have that luxury. If your startup fails, you will struggle to feed yourself, and we don’t have an established community to pick you back up. “
Perhaps this is the reason why Ghana receives less funding for the start-up ecosystem than its sister country Nigeria. In 2016, according to a report released by Partech Ventures, Ghana received about $8.67million as total investment raised by start-ups as compared to a whooping $109.37 million raised by the Nigerian ecosystem.
Has the media and conferences been helpful?
Many believe that most innovations or startups in Ghana don’t thrive because they are mostly motivated by the “wrong reasons”. Another factor for failure of these startups is what I call the “unnecessary media hype”. Many young folks build start-ups to get the “media and conference panelist” recognition. Many of these young folks don’t have the patience to build a working model which will yield extreme long term benefits, but prefer to do a quick fix for short term recognition and then phase out after the media hype shifts to another start-up.
In a Facebook interaction with Kobby Blay, a nurse and founder of GhanahealthNest.com, he indicated that the media is to blame for poor work done. He said, “May be we should share the blame of the ‘unnecessary media hype’ to the media persons, who fail to do proper probing”. Many seasoned entrepreneurs believe that, young entrepreneurs build products to showcase at conferences without any sustainable plan.
Godwin Martey, CEO of Websoft Solutions, shared his view on the issue, he said “I started building Websoft in 2007, and I ensured I never showed up on any platform or any media till I had built a system in 2013. That was 6 good years of grinding. Most of these folks showing up in every conference and collecting awards have no foundations, no working model, no proper cash-flow, no serious assets, nothing. They just go about empty enjoying a transient hype that will eventually put them in trouble. Until 2013, I never called myself CEO, I was always Marketing Officer for Websoft Solutions for 6 years, then I changed it to Head of Operations and then when the business grew further I became the CEO. Many people want to start with the glory before they write the story. It’s Sad.”
Francis Birikorang, co-founder of AgroCenta, also stated that “the hype will take you there, due diligence will bring you back empty handed”. Other people are of the view that the media plays a critical role in helping start-ups in Ghana succeed. “They could have the motive of survival and that is not wrong. They could get media hype and that is ok. If they had the safety net, capital and efficient incubator hubs with business support and advisory services, most of them will turn out very ok. They do the media and attend conferences for visibility, hoping it will land them the right networks and capital.” says Ms. Louise Clara Donkor, former SRC President at the University of Ghana.
“Africa is a very green territory and mostly innovators don’t go looking for media but media comes to them since they happen to fall in a unique spot. if local media finds you in your early stage, due to ignorance in the field, they may hype you in a way that annoy those who know.. but who do you blame? Ignorance! But then, all these are good and have to happen for the ecosystem to grow. Start a game company now and CNN will find you.. why? because it’s new in the territory (but not in the world). After 10 years, it wouldn’t be new anymore since a lot more would have been done by us the early birds and due to the encouragement instilled, more game developers would have been made” says Eyram Tawiah, co-founder of Leti Arts.
The Safety Net
One other key factor that Sesinam indicated was that, most young Ghanaians don’t have a “safety net” as they intend to build start-ups. He said “the people who built Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc had the privilege to be able to even quit attending Ivy league schools. You can’t take such a huge risk as a young Ghanaian. In fact, if a young Ghanaian dreams to quit Harvard and follow his passion, he will wake up from his sleep and apologise to himself for having such a dream. I respect young Ghanaians who are building businesses in Ghana because I am not sure I would have had access to the opportunities and courage to start up my tech business in Ghana if I lived all my life in Ghana “. Even though the environment plays a role in how successful a start-up could be, some entrepreneurs like Kwabena Danso, CEO of Boomers International, believes that there are other equally important factors. He said ” when you have a business you are passionate about, you do not think about it failing in the first place. You are always looking at what will make you thrive and succeed. The fear of failure will not be part of the thinking. It is only when you have jumped onto the wagon with the intention of getting what you can get is when you also become afraid of failing. I understand the environment plays part in a lot of businesses failing but most businesses are failing as a result of unwise decisions from the entrepreneurs”
No Market for the Start-ups?
Is the non-existence of a ready market to buy the products of these start-ups the primary reason for their failure? The President and founder of mPedigree, a mobile application technology that is able to identify fake products by texting a 10-digits to a short code, Bright Simons, argues that, ” I am now on the side of those who believe “markets are everything”. The primary reason for failure is the simple absence of a market for the product. Without a market it doesn’t matter if the team is made up of Ford, Jobs and Dell, it will fail. If a market exists, even a mediocre entrepreneur will crack a reasonably workable model of making money. I have advised enough big companies now to conclude finally that “creating new markets” often simply mean “hijacking old markets”.
However, there is another school of thought that believes that start-ups can create a market if there is none. Ekuonana Omane argues that “not only existing markets but the ability to create one. Most people don’t know they need a service or product until you effectively brand and market that service or product.
What do you also think?
By kofi Blog No comments Tags: African Entrepreneurs, Ghana, Innovation, mPedigree, social entrepreneurship, Start-ups, Start-ups in Ghana