Fourteen young entrepreneurs have been awarded at the maiden edition of the Young Entrepreneurs Award held at the British Council in Accra on Thursday.
The award which is an initiative of a group of young entrepreneurs called the Youth Business Network seeks to recognise and celebrate successful young people below age 40 who are into their own businesses.
Speaking in an interview on the sideline of the ceremony, the Awards Committee Chairperson, Solomon Adjei said the entrepreneurs nominated for the awards have sustainable business plans which can survive for at least five years.
He said, “We were looking at business sustainability. You can start business today and tomorrow you’re offline and that is not business. Your business must be able to solve problems and it must be able to solve problems.
The nominees according to Mr. Adjei were also selected based on the number of people they were employing as “Unemployment is a bigger issue now”.
As the maiden edition, Mr. Adjei said he was satisfied with the turn up and expressed optimism about the subsequent ones.
He believes the second edition of the Young Entrepreneurs Award would be better as the team is putting in efforts so as to bring on board other countries to support.
“We’re collaborating with other key institutions and already we’ve got the Commonwealth Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs with us. And so we have 18 countries now signing on to this awards programme so next year God willing we’re going to do this not for Ghana alone but for Africa; commonwealth and then other Francophone countries joining us,” he disclosed.
He lauded government and other private institutions for supporting the awards scheme and appealed for more support in order to make the 2018 awards event much successful.
About the Young Entrepreneurs Awards
Young entrepreneurs were selected and grouped into fourteen (14) categories to compete for the awards.
One successful entrepreneur was selected from each category and crowned the ultimate winner of the award.
The categories among others include:
Female Disability Entrepreneur of the year, Female Startup Entrepreneur of the year, Female Celebrity Entrepreneur of the year, Female Entrepreneur of the year, Female Student Entrepreneur of the year, YBN Female Entrepreneur of the year, Male Disability Entrepreneur of the year, Male Celebrity Entrepreneur of the year, Male Student Entrepreneur of the Year, Male Startup Entrepreneur of the year, YBN Female Entrepreneur of the year, Male Entrepreneur of the year.
The Male and Female Celebrity of the Year Awards went to Radio Presenter and CEO of Kaya Tours Company Limited, Abeiku Aggrey Santana and CEO of Yaba Ghana company Ltd, Martha Ankomah respectively.
Individuals and companies that champion entrepreneurship were also honoured at the event.
