Boost Media in partnership with Optimum Homes, a real estate firm, is scheduled to host Ghana’s first ultimate entrepreneur competition to provide opportunity for young Ghanaian entrepreneurs to access the much needed funding for their entrepreneurial ventures.
The competition further aims to provide mentorship and other support services needed to significantly reduce startup failure rate in Ghana, improve business performance of startups and their impact on the larger society.
The competition, with a star prize of GHC10,000, is expected to contribute to enhancing job creation and poverty alleviation in the country whiles it inspires, cultivates and promotes the culture and spirit of entrepreneurship among young Ghanaians. It is also expected to boost the socio-economic development of the country through the creation of successful businesses and employment.
Organizers of the competition have described Entrepreneurs as the driving forces of positive change and development in any society. In view of this fact, the apparent absence of an initiative aimed at discovering, developing and empowering young Ghanaian entrepreneurs at a significant scale in Ghana has motivated the creation of this competition ‘Ghana’s Ultimate Entrepreneur Competition’ (GUEC).
The Chief Executive Officer of Boost Media, Assistant Prof. Dr. Cynthia Addae making a statement said the competition is a reality nationwide entrepreneurship competition designed to elicit, develop, and showcase the latent innovative ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit in Ghanaian youths towards realizing a broader purpose of nation building.
Accordingly, the contestants will be given a set of tasks which they will have to complete in the course of the competition. Also, during the period of the competition, the contestants will develop and sharpen their entrepreneurial skills as they complete different tasks and progress through the different stages of the competition.
Target Groups and Eligibility
The competition is targeted at innovative early-stage entrepreneurs as well as aspiring entrepreneurs. Accordingly, intending participants must be ‘entrepreneurial’ because the set of tasks to be carried out in the competition will require contestants to draw from their entrepreneurial knowledge and competencies such as creativity, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, idea-generation and etc. Meanwhile, in order to be eligible to join the contest, aspiring contestants must meet the following criteria:
Contestants must be Ghanaian citizens, Between 15-35 years of age, Resident in Ghana at the time of the competition,
Propose an innovative product/service that they desire to develop into a business. Entry and Registration
Entering into the competition takes only three simple steps. To join the competition, aspiring contestants (applicants) will have to dial *800*2525# to all networks to register.
Stages and Tasks
The tasks to be completed in this competition are classified into three stages in order of progression. A certain number of contestants will be eliminated at each stage and only those who scale through the challenges at each stage will proceed to the next. In order to determine which of the entries resonates most with the Ghanaian public, the entries of all the contestants will be posted and subject to public voting and will be the basis for the first three rounds of voting in the competition. The eentries will be posted alongside with the contestants’ photo on the competition webpage and social media platforms. Consequently, contestants must carefully craft their ‘answer’ to impress, captivate, and attract the admiration and votes of the voting public.
Performance appraisal of contestants at this stage will be based entirely on public voting. This means, contestants whose entry amasses the highest number of votes will be eligible to move to the next round of voting. This stage of the competition will require contestants to bring their entrepreneurial ingenuity and spirit to bear in completing the tasks and staying in the game. Contestants will be tasked on problem definition and opportunity identification, ccreative thinking and problem solving as well as innovation and ccommercialization.
Contestants will create a value proposition for the innovative product concept detailing the value added (features, functionality, etc) and why it is needed significant. They will ddevelop and justify their marketing strategies for the innovative product concept in terms of specific markets been targeted, pricing strategy, product design/packaging, channel of distribution and promotional strategies.
Ccontestants will be eliminated after this round and the remaining 10 contestants will become the top 10 finalists who will proceed to the final stage of the competition and battle for the GRAND PRIZE and the coveted title of ‘Ghana’s Ultimate Entrepreneur’ for the season.
Here, contestants will ddevelop a full-fledged business proposition for the business idea to be pitched to a cross-section of expert jury at the grand finale ceremony.
The expected deliverable at this stage is a fully developed pitch to be presented to the jury. The format of presentation is opened to the contestants’ discretion. For instance, they could decide to enhance their pitch with the use of PowerPoint deck, prototype display/demonstration, actual product testing, or a combination of these and more. The competition will be an opportunity of a lifetime for the contestants to captivate and impress the jury and the Ghanaian public, and hopefully walk away with the grand PRIZE and the coveted title of Ghana’s Ultimate Entrepreneur for the season.
Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation and progression in Stage 1 and Stage 2 will be based entirely on public voting. In other words, elimination will be done based on number of votes obtained by each contestant. Those with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated after each round.
However, given the nature of the task in Stage 3, evaluation will be more rigorous and the criteria will be broader to ensure that a worthy winner emerges. Hence, evaluation and judgment at this stage will be based on 50% public voting and 50% evaluation by a cross section of carefully selected expert jury. The specific criteria for evaluation and judgment at this stage will include – entrepreneurial vision, feasibility, innovation (technology integration), profitability, scalability, social impact and sustainability.
All voting will be done through a designated USSD code to be provided to the contestants and the general public.
TIMELINE & SCHEDULE
The GUEC is designed to run as a seasonal competition and each new season will commence by January of the year. The timeline for the competition will be 3-months with lineup of activities spread across the 3-month period.