Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, accompanied by the leaders of 15 local ICT companies, left Accra on Monday night for a five-day working visit to the high-tech city of Silicon Valley in California.

During the visit, the Vice-President will hold discussions with Silicon Valley’s thought and technology leaders, to explore the possibilities of developing strategic insight, decisions and partnerships.

The meeting is aimed at helping to enhance the digitisation of the Ghanaian economy to move Ghana beyond aid.

The ICT leaders accompanying the Vice-President include representatives from GHIPSS, Hubtel, SoftTribe, DreamOval, IBM, and EDEL Technology Consulting.

The rest are from GE, Trotro Tractor, EDEL Technology Consulting, Rancard Solutions, Nsano, Expresspay, Bluespace, Callens Solution, and Bsystems IT Consortium.

Last week, the Vice-President visited a number of Ghanaian ICT firms to understand their challenges in order to aid policy formulation.

The visit to Silicon Valley by the Vice-President and the leadership of the ICT firms is to engage the world leaders in ICT, in order to exchange ideas and fashion Ghanaian solutions to Ghanaian challenges.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is scheduled to meet with corporate executives of cutting-edge digital technology organisations, including Microsoft, Facebook, Tesla, and Alphabet, and visit a number of facilities, including the G.E. Digital Centre and the IBM Watson Centre.

The Vice-President will also meet with the Ghanaian community and brief them on happenings back home.

The Vice-President returns to Accra on Saturday.