Accra - Overlooking the Gulf of Guinea from the heart of the old center of Accra is a six-story concrete building that looks perfectly anonymous to the outside world. In fact, one would never suspect that more than a dozen start-up companies are occupying the entire top floor of the building, a meandering 9000 sq feet of office space that includes two IT laboratories, a lecture hall, conference and library facilities and an office for each business.
A systems analyst and former KPMG senior consultant, Solomon Asante Dartey heads the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre (GMIC) that has been providing space, training and equipment to lift these start-up companies onto the national IT market. “Thanks to Ghana’s education system, there is a lot of talent around”, says Dartey. “We identify that talent and help to build the skills of young people so that they can go out there and get some jobs,” he adds.
When the Ministry of Communication of Ghana launched its ICT for Development initiative in 2005, aiming to create a service economy based on some of the most cutting-edge sectors, UNDP, in addition to helping the government to design and implement the initiative, facilitated the creation of what is known here as the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre (GMIC).
“UNDP picked up the enormous opportunity that the Government of Ghana has opened up. Together, we are working to make this into one of the most innovative business incubation models in Africa,” says Frederick Hans Ampiah, Partnerships Advisor at UNDP Ghana.
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Ghana
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