Women in Tech Incubator Programme outdoored

Women in Tech Incubator (WIT) Programme, an initiative to provide premium business incubation services to women-owned or women-led businesses, has been outdoored in Accra.

A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday said the target audience of WIT was women-led or women-owned businesses that were applying technological innovation to their operations, or women-owned tech start-ups.

The first cohort would provide premium business incubation services to 40 women-owned businesses, with five selected top finalists receiving seed funding from Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited.

WIT is a collaborative project between the Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited and the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC), an Ashesi University business incubator.

For the duration of the programme, Standard Chartered Bank, through GCIC would offer a series of interventions to selected businesses including opportunities to pitch for and secure financial grants for scaling up their business and access to dedicated enterprise and portfolio managers, the statement said.

It said the selected businesses would be given access to GCIC’s highly acclaimed High Values Mini MBA and the Women Entrepreneurs Transformation Programme.

It quoted Mrs Mansa Nettey, the Chief Executive, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited, as saying; “Empowering businesses founded or led by females is crucial to accelerating progress towards achieving our nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.”

“The Women in Tech Incubator will provide an opportunity for women-owned or led businesses to thrive in a post COVID-19 digital world by tapping into the opportunities offered by technology adaptation.”

“We look forward to all that will be accomplished through this initiative, including redefining entrepreneurship.”

Ms Ruka Sanusi, the Executive Director of the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, said: “Collaborating with Standard Chartered to build the insight and resilience needed by women entrepreneurs to thrive in the innovation and technology sector is a huge privilege and responsibility.”

Launched in 2014 in New York, Standard Chartered Bank’s WIT is now a global programme. In 2017 the first WIT incubator was launched in Africa and Middle East, with Kenya being the first market and have subsequently rolled it out in other key markets including Nigeria, UAE, Pakistan, Bahrain and Zambia with Ghana being the seventh market.

In three years, the Bank has provided over $500,000 to various programme cohorts in these markets along with financial backing, Standard Chartered also provides training, mentoring and access to a wider network of other companies for the entrepreneurs.