On the 4th October 2022, Standard Chartered Women in Technology Incubator programme (SC-WIT) Cohort 2 has awarded GHC 90,500 each in seed funding to five women-owned businesses to scale up their business operations.
The programme is a business incubator specifically designed to provide business support for women-owned businesses that leverage technology as part of the bank’s commitment to creating opportunities for female entrepreneurs whilst contributing to bridging the gender gap.
The entrepreneurs have been through a nine-month-long incubation programme that comprised business advisory and financial interventions, including a highly acclaimed high-value Mini MBA programme managed by Ashesi University’s Ghana Climate Innovation Centre.
The entrepreneurs also had the opportunity to pitch their businesses to a panel. Five of the most outstanding businesses received a financial grant of the cedi equivalent of $10,000, to scale up their business.
The five winners are:
Farmio Limited: An innovative agribusiness company focused on providing tech-enabled agribusiness investment solutions for people interested in building sustainable and profitable agricultural businesses. Farmio has its main objective of maximizing value for its key stakeholders who contribute towards our greenhouses. The business builds and manages greenhouses while guaranteeing market access for its produce through its major partnerships at premium prices.
Bood Company Limited: An agribusiness that began operations in 2019 and has three co-founders. The company is legally registered and licensed as a commercial Agribusiness under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s, Savannah Investment Project. BOOD specializes in the production of maize and other cash crops such as cashew and shea in rural communities.
H.A Farms: A poultry business located in Mankessim in the central region of Ghana. It was started in 2017 by Hannah Aidoo with a first batch of layers coming in August 2018. H.A farms was established to provide employment opportunities in our community and help improve the nutritional needs of consumers. Its aim as a company is to provide healthy and affordable meat and eggs to our cherished customers.
The Delse Shop: a shop that desires to bring the best made in Ghana beauty products to the modern African woman whilst supporting rural female farmers. It combines affordability and luxury to make searching and purchasing natural beauty products easier and more convenient. The enterprise’s mission is to celebrate the African woman by making available the best hair and skin care products that are also environmentally friendly. It does this by partnering with local farmers and producers to provide the best organic beauty products for the modern everyday woman.
Happy Eagle Tourism Management: A company that creates, plans, and sells domestic tours within Ghana. It has integrated Artificial intelligence onto its platform, which helps recommend affordable air tickets, restaurants, tour activities as well as hotels and restaurants that appeal to the needs of various budgets. During the lockdown, it developed ARR to help tourists who are not able to travel to have the feel and experience of tours independent of their location.
Some of the significant results of the programme include over twenty-one (21) new jobs that have been created, five of which are for women, whilst 22271 households have access to products from the cohort. $125,655 in revenue has been generated by the businesses and $50,000 has been received as grants. It is also significant to note that 12 out of the 16 regions were represented in the selection of entrepreneurs.
Speaking at the graduation, Angela Okai, Company Secretary, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana PLC touched on Standard Chartered Banks commitment in supporting women in technology saying “SC Women in Technology incubator is in line with the Bank’s commitment to drive sustainability by contributing to the economic development of Ghana and in tandem with our approach to sustainability. It offers women start-ups a unique opportunity to receive guidance from experienced and successful professionals. It aims to promote more diversity of thought and innovation and provide more opportunities for women to develop entrepreneurial excellence.”
The Executive Director of the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, Rukayatu Sanusi, a key partner of the programme, in her address highlighted, the importance of technology in business development, stating ‘for us at the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, technology is key to dealing with climate change, cyberwarfare, and the reorientation of job sectors, to name but a few. And so, it is imperative that women reap the benefits and are involved in finding solutions.’
The Standard Chartered Women in Technology Programme is currently running in eight markets within Africa and Middle East including Kenya, Nigeria, UAE, and Pakistan. In Ghana, the program is run in partnership with the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, an Institute of Ashesi University.
