The Chief Executive Executive (CEO) of iSpace Foundation, Mr Josiah Kwesi Eyison, has stressed that the technology and innovation space in Ghana has a huge potential to turn the country’s economy around for improved livelihoods, growth and development.
He said the tech and innovation space was fast-revolutionizing as numerous Ghanaian youth and women were leveraging the space to create and boost their own businesses, and as well employ others.
Mr Eyison, who doubled as the Chairperson of the Ghana Hubs Network (GHN), said this in Wa during the iSpace Foundation's tour of the Upper West Region to open a National Dialogue Series on Research, Innovation and Commercialization (RIC).
He said the country was at the beginning of its revolution in the technology and innovation space and that it had enormous potential in creating jobs and employment opportunities.
“There are so many things that we can do, so, right now, you would find that youth are now being skilled to create either create websites, mobile apps, create their own digital businesses, you have people that have e-commerce businesses, you even have people that are doing buying and selling businesses, but they are doing it online.
“So for the first time African youth or Ghanaian youth are using technology to empower themselves, to create their own economy, to employ other people,” he said.
Mr Eyison asserted that there was every opportunity for technology and innovation to make the country “great and strong” as he said, “It goes without saying that it [the potential] is huge and cannot be understated.”
However, he urged that there was the need to make conscious efforts at embracing technology, especially in the northern part of Ghana and ensuring that women were not left out.
He observed that the growth of the technology and innovation space in northern parts of Ghana was adversely impacted by infrastructural constraints, citing intercity travel times and internet constrictions.
“The internet is really not that stable [and] that means that even if you are pitching online, it is very hard because we cannot hear you, it cut out and so many things,” he cited.
Mr Eyison added that technology and innovation space was also hampered by human resource inadequacies and generally, by financial insufficiencies which he said was common to all ecosystems and not peculiar to the North.
He, therefore, called on the government to consciously prioritize offering support such as tax incentives, to the technology and innovation ecosystem to properly position hubs for the provision of the needed technological advancement in the country.
“The National Service Scheme, for example, we can look at ways some of the students can work in innovation hubs, whether as accountants, operations managers, whatever they learnt at the university, they can then apply it these hubs. We can look at tax incentives, we can look at the government giving us some of the buildings that they have.
“The funding agencies need to look at ways in which they can fund programs in the North and give them infrastructure, give them tools, [and] give them resources,” he appealed
He also appealed to the private sector to invest in the innovation space and called on the generality of the public including the media to play their respective roles in ensuring the tech and innovation space thrives for the country’s development.
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