The Christian Service University College (CSUC) Students’ Representative Council, in collaboration with its Local NUGS/PUSAG Secretariat has held its 3rd edition of Achievers Summit under the theme: “Business leadership role to eradicate poverty in the 21st Century”. The summit which brought together business and leadership coaches from different sectors of the economy to suggest some innovate ways to alleviate poverty, was designed to provide students with essential knowledge and skills for the modern day entrepreneur.
The main speaker, Mrs. Ruth Karikari Gyamfi, a banking expert and a management consultant established that the real solution to the problem of poverty is the ability to develop entrepreneurial skills of being “innovative, passionate, resilient, focused and result oriented; not being poor, if not rich.” She posited that these skills are geared towards bridging the gap between entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation when people are committed to them. Mrs. Gyamfi identified change as a key factor to the poverty alleviation process but the game changer starts with the mind-set and attitude, and ends with the time and money investments people make to bring innovations that lead to entrepreneurial ventures. She assured participants that the very concrete results one produces in making such change is the financial gains from the business setups which also increases in job opportunities for other people.
Building on the position of Mrs Karikari Gyamfi, the second speaker, Mr. Franklin Owusu–Karikari, a government representative, an entrepreneur, author and an SME consultant also noted that the government has established the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Program (NEIP) as a major support scheme to help create more businesses to eradicate poverty. He advised that a greater portion of these job created have been made available for tertiary students and graduates to tap in for employment, thus minimising graduate unemployment which has been a major economic problem in the country. The NEIP also stands as an entrepreneurship-oriented centre that harnesses innovations and support small scale enterprises to flourish with sponsorships. He encouraged students to visit the
NEIP website to exploit its numerous opportunities to aid them to own their enterprises while in school.
On his part, Mr. Kwame Luther King Adinkra, a Ghanaian media expert with decades of industrial and professional experience outlined some media provisions to equip the 21st century tertiary student to become entrepreneur in no time. He indicated that the multiple channels of the media, including social media offer a pool of opportunities for business enterprises that people could utilise to manage economic crises if not alleviating poverty entirely. The media today, he noted, has moved beyond the notion of a news source and entertainment to the creation of brand awareness, client and customer recruitments for products and services. Social media for instance, has become the easiest, fairly cheaper and cost effective amongst all, and is constantly being used to publicise and sell innovations, goods and jobs to millions of the target market to generate income for survival. He finally charged the communication students specifically to urgently showcase their skills through blogging, advertising, audio and infographic innovations for income benefit, network for business growth and at large impact society.
Approximately, 200 people attended the summit including top officials of the University College, staff and students and fellow tertiary SRC executives across Ashanti Region.
Report By:
Anastasia C. Erzuah, Institutional Advancement Office, CSUC
