Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) Women's Bootcamp
The KIC Women’s Bootcamp equips young women in tertiary educational institutions, as well as in the peri-urban and rural communities with the skills and knowledge needed to develop innovative agri-business ideas whiles receiving mentoring and coaching from business experts. Young tertiary students as well as women living with disabilities receive training and capacity building, with funding support to start their businesses. There is also support provided to women with children, in line with KIC’s safeguarding and child safety principles to ensure that young female parents benefit from the trainings.
The School Farm Competition
The School Farm Competition introduces students in junior and senior high schools to agriculture innovation by focusing on horticulture. The students learn from concepts such as nursing seedlings, transplanting, cultivation beds and the right application use of approved chemicals and fertilizer, as well as the use of PPEs. Through the practical experience, the program seeks to create a change in mindset about seeing agriculture as a form of punishment to seeing it as an economic viable activity.
AgriTech Challenge Classic
The AgriTech Challenge Classic is a 7-month annual training program aimed at developing the interest and building the mindset of students and young graduates to ultimately drive systemic change in Ghana’s agriculture sector. It provides the youth with the right exposure to the agriculture value chain and provide networking opportunity to build and grow viable solutions to Ghana’s key agricultural challenges.
AgriTech Challenge Pro
The KIC Agritech Challenge Pro is an accelerator program aiming to support young entrepreneurs to launch and grow commercially viable, scalable solutions to key problems in the agricultural sector. The program aims to drive technology and innovation as a catalyst to enhancing productivity, improving yields, and creating more jobs within Ghana’s agricultural sector.
The KIC Business Incubation program is aimed at preparing businesses for growth, scale, and investor readiness. The incubation program provides specialized coaching and mentorship, networking, physical infrastructure, access to technical expertise and a continuous learning environment for businesses with high growth potential selected from the AgriTech Challenge Pro.
Business Booster
The KIC Business Booster is a growth and acceleration program targeted at Ghanaian-owned Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Farmer Based Organisations(FBOs). This program component seeks to strengthen and spur the growth of existing MSMEs in agriculture and agriculture adjacent sectors in Ghana that have demonstrated potential and are ready to scale.
KIC Fellowship
The KIC Fellowship is a formal alumni network that ensures all beneficiaries, especially those who do not receive seed funding to grow their businesses have other pathways and opportunities available to them.
Agribiz programs
Agriculture is the dominant industry for individuals residing in the Northern Region compared to other regions of Ghana. In the northern region alone, the 2021 Ghana Living Standards Survey reports that the sectors employ as much as 66.7% of people. Despites the huge potential agriculture to transform the life and economy of northern Ghana, poverty remain endemic. Factors contributing to this inability of agriculture to result to robust micro economies includes the dwindling participation of youth, the reliance and use of rudimentary tools and farming methods, low adaption to climate change, low innovation, and technology uptake etc. KIC Agribusiness Programmes ( AgriBiz Build Up, AgriBiz Build Up Intermediate, AgriBiz Build Up Advance, Womens AgriBiz Elevate and AgriBiz Sprint) have been designed to address some of these challenges. The Agribusiness programmes are being supported by the USAID funded Feed the Future Ghana Market Systems and Resilience Activity.
Young Agripreneur Forum (YAF)
The KIC YAF is a student-led interactive forum where tertiary students can share and exchange ideas, interests and engage in activities pertaining to agriculture. YAF will provide capacity building and practical skills training for students, invest in changing the mindset and perceptions of young people and position agripreneurship as an exciting career of choice.
Young Farmer Business Academy (YFBA)
The KIC Young Farmer Business Academy (YFBA) is a 4 –7-month program that identifies young people who are interested in setting up an agribusiness in agricultural production. The program provides them with a system of training, workshops, and hands on experience to set up their own farms using practical sessions, field demonstrations, coaching and mentorship as a tool to encourage participants to take a fresh look at agri- production and its adjoining sectors to identify areas with potential business opportunities.
Agricultural Innovation for Africa Conference (AIA)
The KIC AIA conference provides a unique platform for rethinking the future of agricultural innovation, youth employment, and food security in Africa.
