Mr. Jorn Lyseggen, Chief Executive Officer of Meltwater Entrepreneur School of Technology (MEST), has said Ghana is blessed with enormous talents to be able to build sellable software products to compete with the rest of the world in Information Technology (IT).

He said with MEST vision to create wealth and jobs in Africa by training and mentoring young Africans to become successful international software entrepreneurs, the talent pool in Ghana, the creativity and desire to use IT to solve problems makes Ghana a viable competition in any part of the world.

Mr. Lyseggen was speaking at the 5th graduation ceremony for young entrepreneurs who completed two years training in IT and business mentoring at the MEST School in Accra.

The eleven graduates were enrolled in a rigorous program where they, in two years, have received training in programming, the art of software development, making business plans, and entrepreneurship.

The graduates after graduation will be expected to present a workable business plan and when approved they will receive seed funding up to US$200000 from the Meltwater Foundation to start their own businesses.

Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb, Mr. Jorn Lyseggen said: “We chose Ghana after hundreds of interviews looking for a place to set up, and the attitudes of Ghanaians are very appealing, democratic and a strong focus on education. When we came here, we found world class talent, evenly distributed, and most of whom were very young. In a world like that, Ghanaians can compete with China, US and India”.

He said Ghanaians can use the talents available to solve the existing challenges bedeviling the nation, to create viable jobs to put the economy on a sound footing.

MEST offers a two-year full-time fully sponsored training program in which the students – known as Entrepreneurs in Training (EITs) – learn about software development and entrepreneurship from Senior Faculty, whom each bring more than 20 years of experience in the software business in the United States, Europe and Asia.

EITs also benefit from working with recent university graduates who serve as Teaching Fellows and MBA students from around the world. Only MEST EITs with approved business plans are eligible to participate in the incubator, where they will be awarded initial seed funding from the Meltwater Foundation in exchange for a minority equity stake in the business.

Additionally, the MEST incubator provides physical infrastructure, and more importantly gives access to a global network of advisors and contacts that will be critical in providing an ecosystem for these budding entrepreneurs to flourish.

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