Tertiary students urged to come up with innovations to complement development efforts

Dr Thomas Mensah, a Ghanaian-American Chemical Engineer and Inventor, has called on Ghanaians, especially tertiary students to come out with innovations that would lead to the development of the country.

He said Ghanaians have the capacity and are well-endowed to champion the development of the country if given the right training.

Dr Mensah said this when he visited the Regent University College of Science and Technology in Accra, to share his vision and to collaborate with the management and students of the institution on how best they could assist in making the Silicon Valley of Ghana a reality.

It was also to inspire the students to become more resourceful and use the practical skills they have acquired for the development of the country.

Dr Mensah said this is very crucial as it would give students the practical side of engineering to transform Ghana’s technological space for development.

The Silicon Valley of Ghana is an initiative that will create business accelerators and incubators that can compete with tech-companies around the world, move the nation into the 21st century’s technological advancement and more so support the high speed Bullet Train concept currently under development.

It will accelerate our development and bridge the gap of practical engineering in the country, where graduates can build and manufacture unique brands.

The innovation and competency centres which will link up with the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE), Dr Mensah said, includes the University of Ghana, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Development Studies and the University of Cape Coast.

Dr Mensah said the innovation and competency centres' would work with industries and academia to create ICT products and services in the country.

He said Ghana was behind in development because the country has not prioritised science and technology and there is the need to take practical technology seriously to drive the economy’s development.

He said the Silicon Valley of Ghana would create 500,000 jobs and train 300,000 Senior High Students in software development in the country.

“We are creating 500,000 jobs. Silicon Valley Ghana is all about jobs just like the Silicon Valley in the United States creates jobs. All the new companies came out of Silicon Valley, the Google, and Facebook and in Ghana we are going to do the same,” he said.

Dr Mensah said there is the need for the country’s educational curriculum to have more practical courses, to make students- inventors.

“When you finish a polytechnic ,you should be able to build something, you should be able to open up a TV and fix it, you should be able to fix the air condition, a car or the engine, the practical things are more important,” he said.

He said they would use the Silicon Valley to build ordinary items and later move on to sophisticated ones like satellites.

Dr Mensah called on all institutions to support the initiative and push for practical education in the country.