Three students of the University for Development Students (UDS) have won this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Business Innovation Award, qualifying them to receive GHc15,000.00 each to implement their business ideas.
The students/graduates, whose business ideas fall in areas of agriculture production and nutrition, will be supported by the Business Innovation and Incubation Centre (BIIC) of UDS to develop their ideas into viable business ventures.
The Awardees are Mr Alhassan Abdul-Rashid Wumpini, a final year Development Education Studies student, Ms Tiku Chantal Atut, a graduate student at the Department of Agricultural Engineering and Ms Charlotte Tiesaah, a biotechnology student, who graduated this year.
They pitched their business ideas, where a panel of judges subjected them to an assessment and selected the winners.
Five other students, who also pitched their business ideas but could not win the Vice-Chancellor’s Business Innovation Award, would also be supported through incubation to develop their ideas into viable business ventures.
The Vice-Chancellor’s Business Innovation Award formed part of the activities of the BIIC of the UDS to develop an entrepreneurial mindset among the youth, especially students of the UDS and to strengthen University private sector relationships.
This year’s event, which was the second in the series of the annual event, was sponsored by the Management of UDS, UDS Alumni, Agricultural Development Bank, Yara Ghana and Amaati Company Limited.
Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye, Vice-Chancellor of UDS, said the initiative was not only targeted at solving the challenge of graduate unemployment but also to create a pool of capable alumni of the University to support the University with funds and other resources to run its affairs.
Professor Teye appealed to the corporate world and all well-meaning individuals to support the University’s BIIC to implement its objectives to support students of the University to develop their entrepreneurial skills to become business owners, job creators and employers.
Mr Hashim Attakurah Suleman, Managing Director of Bridgewave, a facilities management company, spoke about the challenges and opportunities that entrepreneurs encountered, encouraged the Awardees and students to have the tenacity of purpose and a strong mindset to succeed in business.
Mr Suleman, who is also an alumnus of UDS, told them to be confident and courageous to sail through the challenges, emphasising that they should not be afraid of losing but “Put in place measures to mitigate your risks and be able to rise even after adversities.”
Mr Wumpini, whose business idea was organic and standard production of vegetables to promote the health of consumers, was excited at the Award, saying “In the next two-three years, we hope to be supplying vegetables to hotels and other organisations across the country.”
Source: gna.org.gh.com
