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Time to push the culture of entrepreneurship – President

Accra, Nov. 16, GNA – President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on African countries to help push the frontier of
entrepreneurial development to be able to grow their economies.

Addressing the opening session of the
African Netpreneur Conference, an initiative launched by Jack Ma to support
African entrepreneurs, President Akufo-Addo said entrepreneurship was one of
the most important drivers of economic growth globally.

“The truth is that successful economies
depend on entrepreneurs to run successful businesses. We need to push
vigorously the culture of entrepreneurship so we can grow our economies to
become prosperous,” he said.

The Jack Ma Foundation is hosting the
inaugural full-day Africa Netpreneur Summit in Ghana for African and global
entrepreneurs, investors, educators, and leaders to discuss how best to push
entrepreneurship and the digital economy across the Continent.

Guest speakers will include Ban Ki-moon,
Former UN Secretary General and Co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global
Citizens.

The conference will be followed by the
“Africa’s Business Heroes” event.

President Akufo-Addo said Ghana was humbled
by her choice as host of the inaugural Netpreneur Summit and the African Heroes
Business forum.

It was time to take entrepreneurship
seriously and there could not be a better forum to demonstrate that than the
Netpreueur forum, he said.

The development of entrepreneurial talent is
key and constitute a very powerful tool to development and addressing the
challenge of unemployment, especially youth unemployment.

He said the conference came at a time when
Africa’s youth population was projected to be a quarter of the world’s
population by 2035 and their empowerment through access to education and
enabling environment was important. 

“Africa today has a unique opportunity
engendered by the globalisation of technology to achieve quality development
gains by leveraging technology. The Netpreneur Summit seeks to empower Africa
entrepreneurs to scale up the development.”

The President said Ghana had taken up the
entrepreneur challenge and created an enduring business culture and a conducive
business environment.

He said through the establishment of the
National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme to provide business
development services, support incubators and funding for young businesses, a
great number of beneficiaries were making progress.

Mr Jack Ma, the Founder of Alibaba Group and
the Jack Ma Foundation, said if Africa wanted to develop, solve its problems
and ensure sustainable growth, then leadership must find innovative ways to
encourage entrepreneurs to join forces to develop the Continent.

Not everyone could become an entrepreneur
but everybody must endeavour to have entrepreneurial skills, he noted.

“Good entrepreneurs solve the problems of
society and search for opportunities. They solve problems,” he said, adding
that he was encouraged by the African young entrepreneurs trying to solve the
problems in their communities “and that is the hope.”

Mr Jack Ma said four things were extremely
important for the future of Africa – Education, E-government, Infrastructure
and Entrepreneurship.

“Africa never lacks talents, never lacks
resources and never lacks opportunities.”

“What is needed is people to innovate and I
think Africa should change because of entrepreneurs. Let’s start to help, let’s
start to inspire and let’s start to empower the start-up spirit and
entrepreneurship…,” he added.

President Akufo-Addo later presented awards
to African social innovators of the Africa Innovates for the SDGs.

GNA

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