Panelists at this year’s Innovation Summit which forms part of the Citi Business Festival have pushed for more funding from government to enhance innovation in Ghana.
The panel members were Michael Quarshie, Co-founder and MD of Persol systems, Estelle Akofio Sowah, Country Manager, Google Ghana , Dr. Fred McBagonluri, Founding Dean of Engineering Department at Ashesi University as well as Tech Innovator and President of mPedigree Bright Simons.
Taking her turn on the panel discussion, Country Manager for Google Ghana, Estelle Akofio Sowah said the government should take the forefront in setting the pace for innovation in the country.
She argued that it is important for leaders to set the path for innovators to follow by making it attractive.
“Innovation is nothing foreign, it’s nothing that isn’t us, nothing that isn’t Ghanaian, it’s us, we just need to live and breathe it.We need the example set from our leadership so it was great to hear from the minister in charge of innovation and to hear that it is not something strange so you have given us confidence that indeed change should be here,” she said.
On his part, Tech Innovator and President of M Pedigree, Bright Simons who was called for a linkage between production and consumption of technological product in the country.
“We need to be careful in looking at innovation not only from the consumption but also the production, my argument is that consuming innovation in the case of mobile phone technology and others may not always be convenient so even in the mobile phone space, we are consumers and we need to approach the situation with urgency to fix this,” he said.
Touching on other issues, Mr. Simons advocated for what he described as a Procurement Ombudsman to police the nation’s coffers.
According to him, allocating one percent of the country’s GDP for Innovation is inadequate when the procurement system allows corruption.
Mr. Simons maintained that blocking corrupt loopholes in the procurement system is the most important thing to do now.
The Summit also had some innovators show case their work on how they have used various innovative skills to find solutions to common problems.
Country Manager for Safi Sana Ghana, Raymond Okrofu demonstrated how waste is used to produce energy, a method which if applied well could avert any present or future power challenges.
“So this project is processing organic waste from three main sources. All the organic waste comes to the site and we process it, we produce organic biogas and the gas and its used to power a generator, we feed it into the national grid and the good thing to know is that this is the first of its kind in Ghana and the second in West Africa,” he explained.
CEO of Tiny David and Inventor of SnooCode, Sesinam Dagadu pointed out that fixing the addressing systems will help businesses propel.
“With the new version of SnooCode that we have its about 450 times more precise than what we have in the UK and will allow businesses to operate even without internet so the summit has been great in all of those senses but I think the biggest thing is the recognition and the encouragement that we are getting from people like the minister in charge of innovation,” he said.
Civil Engineer and inventor of the fastest electronic turbine electricity generator in the world, Dr. Mark Amo-Boateng also urged government to be proactive in pushing the nation forward through innovation.
Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation who was a special guest at the summit assured the gathering that his ministry will establish a Science Technology and Innovation Fund to drive government’s agenda of promoting innovation in the country.
“We have finished drafting the innovation policy; we are going to set up the STI fund and everything that goes into it. We will pass a law that will accommodate all these things and when that is done, and when we are given the money, then we know where to put it in order to assess the disbursements,” he assured.
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By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana