The Deputy Chief Executive Officer for National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), Ms. Abigail Swad Laryea, has advised the youth to be job creators and not job seekers.
The Deputy CEO made this known when given an address at the official launch of the 4th Presidential Pitch edition held in Accra.
The Presidential Pitch is a deliberate, systematic, and integrated policy initiative by the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) to boost the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country.
The competition aims to encourage the country’s youth, so only individuals within the specified age range are eligible to participate
“The government is in the process of building an ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE as part of the Ghana Beyond Aid blueprint. To move this vision closer to reality, it has become necessary for the focus to be on entrepreneurship and innovation as that is the direction the whole world is moving towards. Our country is facing enormous challenges in jobs and there’s the need to encourage our youth to be job creators and not job seekers”.
The National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme she mentioned, has been a key catalyst in realizing the vision of building an inclusive, integrated, Innovative, and conducive ecosystem for entrepreneurs in the country.
“Through the leadership of H.E Nana Akufo-Addo, policies and initiatives that cater to the needs of entrepreneurs all over the country have been put in place. One of which is the NEIP whose primary objective is to provide training, business development services, capacity building, mentoring, funding, and access to market linkages to all our beneficiaries to enable them to grow and become successful. NEIP has become a solution to the national youth unemployment menace and a special purpose vehicle designed by his Excellency the president to lead the charge in creating jobs”.
Ms. Swad Laryea averred that, the Presidential Pitch seeks to turn creative businesses by the Ghanaian youth into global business giants with the support of government.
“As a special purpose vehicle for job creation, our response to help curb this youth employment phenomenon lies in initiatives such as the Presidential Pitch” .
The focus of this year’s competition is centered on core business sectors namely, Agriculture, Fintech and ttechnology, Manufacturing and pprocessing, Tourism and the creative art, TTVE and and any other economically viable areas.
NEIP has narrowed down all applications to top 25 instead of the usual top 20.
The award packages for this year’s competition have been increased and, Government is earmarking 2.5 million Ghana Cedis for the top 25 contestants.
Applicants after logging on to the website to complete the application, would be asked to submit a very simple business plan which ccontain, a summary of the business being presented with a problem statement which must be followed with a solution statement.
The others including, Market viability of the business concept, Sales traction or financial summaries if any; The job creation potential; The scalability potential; Sustainability potential and, economic impact of the business.
Applicants must include pictures of their products or sservice and a 1-minute mini pitch of their business.
The competition is however, open to Ghanaian citizens only and applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 40 years at the time of application.
Applicants must present businesses that are innovative, feasible, scalable, and impactful.
The business should have the potential to grow and expand beyond a small-scale operation
It should have the potential to create jobs and contribute to our economic growth.
It should also be able to address social, economic, or environmental cchallenge, and must have a positive impact on society.
The business submitted, must be the original work of the applicant and should not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others.
The website is www.neip.gov.gh
The application portal is open for 2 weeks. June 30 – July 14, 11:59pm.
