On October 6, at “For Better Business Together” (4BBT) programme launch to support economic recovery and strengthen the sustainability and resilience of businesses for the future post Covid, ICC and Mind the Bridge unveiled the plan to launch the ICC Centre of Entrepreneurship in Accra (Ghana). The new centre will start operations in April 2021 and will be connected with the other international ICC Centres of Entrepreneurship.

The goal of ICC Centres of Entrepreneurship is to support the scaling up of the local ecosystems by powering international connections with the Silicon Valley and other global tech hubs.

In this conversation Alberto Onetti, Chairman at Mind the Bridge, sits with Valentina Mintah, Executive Board Member of ICC and founder and former CEO of West Blue Consulting, and Julian Kassum, ICC Global Partnerships & Development Director. Together they discuss the benefits for Ghana and the region of implementing some of the most successful MTB capacity-building programs through the ICC Centres of Entrepreneurship.

At the present time ICC and Mind the Bridge (MTB) have deployed the ICC Centre of Entrepreneurship in Turkey, with further openings in Middle East (Beirut Lebanon, scheduled on October 9 2020), Africa and LATAM planned in the incoming months.

How Mind the Bridge supports the ICC Centres of Entrepreneurship?

  1. Mapping: you can’t improve anything if you’re not able to measure the outputs and track progress. Then the first step is to map the local ecosystem with the goal of understanding how many startups and scaleups are present, the main verticals and local hubs. The outcomes are included in a Tech Scaleup Report, that also provides comparisons with other ecosystems by adopting an international recognized methodology;
  2. Scaling: the best way to foster an ecosystems is to accelerate success stories. The best local startups will be admitted in the Scaleup Program run by MtB in Silicon Valley. They will receive customized mentoring (honing of the value proposition, market positioning, pitching, fund raising, etc), plus market/business development and funding support (tailored business development, introduction to local and international partners /customers/investors).
  3. Empowering: connecting the dots among investors, companies, and startups. The best local talents will be admitted to the MtB Open Innovation Academy,  a program aimed at training on the field (in the world’s main tech hub, Silicon Valley) innovation leaders able to work at the intersection of the ecosystems of startups, investors, and corporations.

“Fostering entrepreneurship by connecting entrepreneurs with investors, businesses and governments around the world… we will recover better and stronger together.”

Valentina Mintah, ICC Executive Board Member