Stanford Seed West Africa Centre Opens in Accra

Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies

The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) has opened its Accra office in Accra. It is the first innovation centre in West Africa.

The Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, expressed appreciation for the initiative undertaken by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the alumni and foreign donors, noting that Ghana would be made a hub of private partnership investment, when the SEED project which primarily aimed to change lives and transform businesses in the country and the sub regions of West Africa took roots.

The Minister urged investors to engage the National Board for Small Scale Industry in the country in their policy decision making.

Mr Iddrisu stressed the need for investors to respect the institutions of the country that they would be dealing with, noting that government was prepared to create an enabling environment for the private sector to grow, since the formal sector could no longer fully support the employment needs of the country.

The Chief Executive Officer of SEED, Dr Tralance Addy, explained that in the bid to execute the project of transforming lives on a massive scale through businesses, three steps were followed, namely innovation, entrepreneurship and scale. 'We look at it as a regional idea rather than country base, 'he said.

Dr Addy bemoaned the fact that there was a gap between the promise of what would happen and what was actually happening, noting that the Millennium Development Goal of poverty reduction had not been achieved, looking at the fact that the year 2015 would soon come to pass.

He indicated that currently 29 small scale companies from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ivory Coast had been listed to be trained and that fair opportunity would be given to individuals from all sectors that were prepared to take their small scale businesses to a higher level.

The Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mr Garth Saloner, added his voice to the fact that alumni of the school were ready to provide coaching and teaching skills to businesses, and outlined some new policies of the school as giving scholarships to individuals who wished to study at the institute.