2014 Global Entrepreneurship Week launched

Ghana will join the world to celebrate the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) - a global campaign dedicated to promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship in people from 17th to 23rd November 2014.

The one week celebration raises awareness of the importance in growing economies from, advancing human welfare and empowering today’s people to take action on their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs.

The 2014 Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) – Ghana campaign, an initiative which is part of the world’s largest celebration of innovators and job creator was been launched in Accra, to celebrate innovators and job creators.

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Ekwow Spio- Garbrah, who launched the week, said “entrepreneurship is generally recognized as a vital element in economic development and an engine for private sector growth and diversity.

It is on the theme “Harnessing Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Policies that Produce”.

It plays a major role in contributing to capital formation, creating employment opportunities, reducing the concentration of economic powers, inducing forward and backward linkages in an economy, creating and distributing wealth, and generally promoting economic growth he said

“As Ghana move towards more private sector oriented economy, there is an urgent need to encourage and support entrepreneurship, and to foster a generation of young entrepreneurs who have the knowledge and business culture to take advantage of the wealth of opportunities in the future,” he said.

“As government intensifies it efforts to strengthen Ghana’s entrepreneurship ecosystem through various intervention programs , it important and critical now than ever before that we support and intensify our efforts in instilling entrepreneurial culture in our citizens , most importantly the youth , this can be archived through laudable initiatives such as Global Entrepreneurship Week-Ghana.”

Mr. Stephen Gyasi-Kwaw, the Founder / CEO of Youth Enhancement International and host of the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) in Ghana said the week would connect students, educators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, employees, non-profit leaders, government officials and many others to celebrate the power of entrepreneurship.

According to him, Ghana’s team would partner organizations who sign up to become a general partner and organize at least one entrepreneurial activity or even align its existing upcoming event with an entrepreneurial component to the week celebration.

Activities such as Women in Business Breakfast, Entrepreneurs Go to Schools Angel Investor Dialogue are all geared toward sharing the entrepreneurial career journey with students and also support women-owned businesses.

Mr Daniel Duku CEO of Venture Capital Trust Fund said “Entrepreneurs are the drivers of economic growth, there is widespread agreement that new companies are a potent force for creating jobs. For this reason, we must as a nation invest in entrepreneurship and small business programs.”

“We must champion intervention programme such as Global Entrepreneurship Week in Ghana”, which he believed hold promise to drive entrepreneurial culture and mindset thinking.

The Director of Africa Initiatives of Global Entrepreneurship Week Nick Villelle, also lauded the success story of the impact of global entrepreneurship Week – Ghana, has demonstrated to the world that innovation could flourish anywhere irrespective of one’s location in the world.

CEO of Kama Group of companies Dr. Michael A. Addo, said “it very important that we instill the spirit of entrepreneurial culture in our people and programs such as Entrepreneurship Week – Ghana must be encouraged in Ghana to foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mr Joe Tackie said, entrepreneurship and innovation is the way to drive economic growth and prosperity of every country, Global Entrepreneurship Week – Ghana will enhance government’s efforts in building an entrepreneurial economy.

GEW would take place in over 150 countries with over 20, 000 partner organization planning more than 40, 000 activities that would directly engage more than seven million people worldwide. Last year alone, more than 7.5 million people in more than 125 countries participated in 40,000 events globally.