By Iddi Yire, GNA –
Accra, Sept. 12, GNA – Mrs Gifty Ohene-Konadu, the National Coordinator of the
One District, One Factory (1D1F) Project has urged entrepreneurs to embrace
technology in order to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of their
businesses.
She said adopting
technology would make entrepreneurs more profitable and result driven, adding
that, technology should enhance business processes in managing factories,
including managing production schedules, human resources, accounting and booking
and marketing.
Mrs Ohene-Konadu
said this in Accra during the opening of the 2019 International Conference on
Education, Technology and Entrepreneurship (ICETE).
The two-day
conference, which is hosted by the Ghana Technology University College (GTUC),
is on the theme: “Promoting Entrepreneurship through Technology and Education”.
The conference is
aimed at exploring the process of creativity and innovation and how it might be
better conducted through the cross-fertilisation of practices from more than
one discipline.
Mrs Ohene-Konadu
said technology would go a long to support entrepreneurs in connecting with
suppliers and customers easily without any hindrance.
She said the
Government on the other hand was supporting and creating enabling environment
for Ghanaian entrepreneurs to invest in profitable ventures and create the
needed jobs to boost the fortunes of Ghana’s economy.
Mrs Ohene-Konadu
noted that across the globe, universities especially, those in the technology
space such as GTUC had championed technological advancement.
She said GTUC was
expected to create technologies that would support the implementation of 1D1F,
and suggested that the University could focus on areas such as machinery
development, information and communication technologies supporting receipt of
goods from suppliers, production of goods, storage, supply of goods to
customers, marketing of goods and other support services.
She encouraged the
University to collaborate with Ghanaian industries to understand business
operations and processes, so as to innovate new technologies which would create
efficiencies, reduce cost of production and make work more productive.
Professor Emmanuel
Ohene Afoakwa, Acting President of GTUC, said the globalisation of industry and
commerce was bringing a vast change in various aspects of life.
He said it was
critical to understand the integrated relationship between entrepreneurship,
technology and education; as these three components had a positive effect on
Ghana towards its development.
Speaking to the
Ghana News Agency (GNA), Prof Akbar Saeed, an Associate Professor of Business
Technology at the Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada, highlighted the
role of entrepreneurship in addressing issues of poverty.
He said there was a
need to educate people in the basic principles of business; to understand how
to start a business, and on the other hand, help people who have innovate ideas
to develop new technologies.
Prof Saeed said those
technologies could then help solve societal challenges, thereby making the
world a better place.
On education, he
was of the view that entrepreneurship and business courses were important at
the various universities, however, those courses would have to be a lot more
collaborative and must cater for the needs of entrepreneurs.
GNA
