KIC inaugurates new office in Tamale

Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) has organised an inauguration ceremony for the opening of its offices and incubation center in Tamale on the 6th July 2023. The event was attended by Honourable Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu, Northern Regional Minister, Joe Mensah, KIC Board Chair, Benjamin Gyna-Kesse, Executive Director for KIC, Glenn Lines, Chief of Party for ACDI/VOCA, district assembly officials, traditional authorities, regional representative of USAID as well as other development agencies located in the Northern Region, among others.

With support from Feed the Future Ghana Market Systems & Resilience (MSR) a USAID funded program, KIC has set- up the incubation hub in Tamale to further reach young people and entrepreneurs within 17 districts across 4 out of the 5 Northern Regions of Ghana with capacity building, coaching and program implementation.The MSR project will strengthen commercial relationship between actors, improve the rural entrepreneurship ecosystem to enable greater market participation, particularly for women and youth, expand the availability of agribusiness services and link targeted policy initiatives to improve local economic governance.

Speaking at the event, Honourable Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu, Northern Regional Minister, said: “ The opening of a KIC office and business incubation hub here in Tamale would provide young people entrepreneurial skills, adding on to the other initiatives that have been started by government and other development partners present in the region, as well as promote entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. In his opening remarks, Mr. Joe Mensah, Board Chair for KIC highlighted that KIC’s strategic vision is to support youth entrepreneurship within the agricultural sector in Ghana by focusing on creating, nurturing and developing youth led businesses that address key issues within the agricultural value chain.

Speaking at the event, the Executive Director of KIC, Mr. Benjamin Gyan- Kessereiterated KICs commitment to bring about transformation within the agricultural value chain, through its coaching, mentoring and seed funding support, thereby equipping young people with market readiness skills to be economically empowered and contribute towards development in their communities. As part of the inauguration ceremony, there was a visit to KIC supported start-ups namely Kodu Technologies, a KIC supported business. Through its partnership with the USAID MSR project, KIC aims to build collaborative partnerships towards development and sustainable and viable agricultural valuesystems.