The World Bank through its the Transform project is supporting the Government of Ghana’s digital entrepreneurship and skills agenda for the implementation of innovation programmes with US$3.1 million in financing support.
The digital entrepreneurship and skills agenda is an 43initiative of government which is targeted at the establishment of a Mobile Application Laboratory (mLab) and two Innovation Hub (iHubs).
The allocation of the support fund to iHub in Accra and Kumasi is US$1.4 million and US$500,000 respectively and for the mLab in Accra it is US$1.2 million.
In 2018, government through the Ministry of Communications began the implemention of an ICT Innovation Project at the Accra Digital Centre under the “eTransform Ghana Project” to nurture technology startups to promote digital entrepreneurship and create digital jobs for the youth.
The project consists of a Mobile Applications Laboratory (mLab) and an Innovation Hub (iHub).
The mLab is expected to function as business incubator, a testing lab – for testing prototype mobile applications – for makers and creative spaces, robotics and Artificial Intelligence labs, labs for other emerging ICT areas, and for a regular rotation of resident firms; while the iHub functions as a “pre-incubation” space, or co-working space, suited for start-ups and entrepreneurs, with a large events space for hosting events that will attract more established firms.
STEM
The World Bank is also supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines in an interdisciplinary and applied approach.
Speaking on behalf of Catherine Appiah-Pinkrah, Director for Pre-Tertiary Education under the Ministry of Education, Josberts Gyan Kwakye of the free SHS secretariat stated, “we are reaching out to the communities of the youth to train them on entrepreneurship as well as to people outside our educational system
