The UPSA Enterprise and Innovation Centre (UEIC) under the Faculty of Management Studies has organised an entrepreneurship fair and trade exhibition, providing a platform for student start-up businesses to showcase their services and products.
The maiden trade fair, themed “Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The Fulcrum of Hope for Sustainable Jobs and Wealth Creation,” brought together more than 1,200 industry practitioners, young startup owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Addressing participants at the opening ceremony on Wednesday, April 19, at the Kofi Ohene-Konadu Auditorium, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of UPSA, Prof John K. M. Mawutor, expressed the University’s resolve to equip students with entrepreneurial skills with the ultimate goal of positioning them to become successful entrepreneurs right after school.
He advised students to cultivate a positive mindset towards entrepreneurship and to identify and solve problems within their communities.
“I urged you to move away from being lamentators when you face a challenge to being problem solvers,” the Prof. Mawutor said. “In doing so, you better your lives and create employment opportunities for others.”
The CEO of Suku Technologies, Mr Tsonam Cleanse Akpeloo, the special guest of honour at the event, urged the students to develop their digital and marketing competencies by acquiring new skills through their phones, stressing that the phone “is the most powerful tool in the world right now.”
In sharing his entrepreneurial journey, Mr Akpeloo, who is also the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), asked aspiring entrepreneurs to be focused, innovative, hardworking, and impactful.
He charged them to leverage their social and professional networks by learning new skills from their circles of friends.
Dean of the Faculty of Management Studies, Prof. Fidelis Quansah, believes the entrepreneurship fair will equip students with the requisite knowledge and exposure to keep up with emerging trends in the business world.
She also highlighted the fair’s potential for providing coaching and mentoring opportunities, particularly for students, through networking.
“We believe that the fair will provide an opportunity for intensive and intentional interaction among industry and academia,” Prof. Quansah said.
“It is also to enlighten students on how to set up businesses after school while offering the opportunity for student entrepreneurs to showcase their business potentials to attract potential investors.”
