Oyonkopa Originate has been adjudged winner of the maiden UCC SRC Entrepreneurship Challenge, Africa’s Biggest Idea Challenge which came off on Thursday, 20th April, 2017, taking home the ultimate prize of Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis.
The competition started with about 123 applicants and was scaled down to 43 business ideas out of which 11 made it to the finals.
After a number of presentations from the various teams (11) who made it to the finals of the Africa’s Biggest Idea Challenge held at the CESLT Auditorium 900, Coats and Scrubs emerged the first runner up receiving Five Thousand Ghana Cedis and Modest Rabbit Farms, the second runner up won Three Thousand Ghana Cedis.
Oyonkopa Originate, a business enterprise which deals in production of African print cloths is managed by a level 400, Bachelor of Arts Social Science students of the University of Cape Coast, Mr. Kweku Opare Mensah.
The former Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Ekow Spio Gabrah, who was the guest speaker for the programme, challenged students of the university to identify and make good use of their talents and not to sit on them.
He explained that the best talent of the university student is the brain power as the student has passed through a number of stages in education.
Dr. Spio Gabrah again stated that students should work hard at identifying problems and bring out solutions to help solve the problems as problem solving ideas are the best ideas.
“Don’t sit on your talent and your best talent is your brain power. When you see a problem, think also about the solution. Don’t just think about the problems but think about what the solutions can be,” he advised.
The former Trade and Industry Minister commended the participants of the entrepreneurship challenge for investing their time and little recourses into their businesses and charged them to have great values for their business.
The immediate past chairman of the University Council, Nana Sam Brew Butler, who chaired the programme advised student entrepreneurs to be good managers of time in order to become successful in their respective field.
“If you want to make money and you want to be successful in this sector you must know how to manage your time,” he said.
The chairman again added that student entrepreneurs should be innovative and embrace competition as it will help them expand their ideas and businesses.
According to the SRC President of the university, Mr. Dennis A. Larbi-Ampofo, the vision of the entrepreneurship challenge is to create the next set of extraordinary entrepreneurs and to help solve the issue of unemployment in our county.
He again indicated that he is hopeful the next set of SRC executives will continue with this initiative.
“My prayer and believe is that the subsequent years to come and the subsequent leadership that takes over from myself and my team will take this as a priority and push this ahead”
The programme was graced by the Vice Dean of Students, Dr. Eugene Darteh; the Provost of the College of Education Studies, Prof. Eric Wilmot; the Provost of College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, Prof. Livingstone K. Sam-Amoah; Dr. Edward Nii Amarteifio a patron of the challenge; some lectures and students of the university.
Source: Godfred Mawugbe|choicism.com
