Ghana’s minister for communication, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with telecoms company MTN and Ghana Multimedia Incubator Center (GMIC), under which the latter will finance the ICT Business Incubation and Entrepreneurship Project under its economic empowerment portfolio.

MTN Ghana chief executive officer (CEO) Serame Taukobong, said the project will last two years, during which an innovation competition will be organised for final year tertiary students with expertise in ICT.

At the end of the competition, he said, 10 startups will be admitted into the business incubator programme, to be trained in software development, programming and applications.

“The signing of the ICT Business Incubator and Entrepreneur partnership affirms MTN’s commitment to leading the delivery of a bold new digital world to the public,” he said,

“MTN is delighted in the Business Incubator Partnership because research had shown that most small businesses were unable to excel to their fifth anniversary and that Africa was the worst; hence the need for business incubators to help businesses improve their survival rate.”

Director of GMIC Solomon Asante Dartey said the partnership is the best means of support for technology commercialisation, especially in ICT and science.