Opinions of Thursday, 21 March 2013

Columnist: Akpah, Prince

A Day Spent at the Accra Youth Summit 4.

Knowing him to be just behind the Mic was thought i would ever know him for, but i was proven wrong to also know he is a young successful entrepreneur, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, speaking on the theme; Entrepreneurship, the Key to Prosperity.

Making his own definition of it, he made us know it is the ability to identify a problem and solve it for a reward or also identifying an opportunity, take advantage of it and get rewarded for it. Illustrating an example of it, during his recent business trip to South Africa where he had some friends discussing about the power outage problem we are facing as a nation (identify problem), then further in their discussion they evaluated how much it would cost them to build a plant to solve the problem and the number of years it would take for the completion of the project which was projected to be 3 years. GET TO IDENTIFY A PROBLEM AND SOLVE IT.

Making examples of how some Ghanaian successful entrepreneurs have excelled on their endeavour, we look at the following

1. Despite kwame. Owner of despite group of companies including peace FM, utv and several others, when most of the radio stations then were dedicated to using English for their broadcasting and programs, he decided to set up a radio station whose dialect was purely local and today his reward for it is known by everyone.

2. Prince Kofi Amoabeng- identified the problem of the duration at which loans were being given out, he decided to make loans accessible to clients within 48 hrs and today he no longer owns it as a financial service but as a bank. 4. Dr Siaw Agyepong, owner of Zoomlion, he identified the poor sanitation management in Ghana and decided to solve and today the whole of Africa can't do without his services.

5. Kwesi Tsum, Owner of Multimedia, many radio stations didn't take serious the playing of commercials, so he decided to use his fm station for commercials and today his deeds are recognized worldwide. He set the pace.

How do you become an entrepreneur, for you to become that known successful entrepreneur;

* find your area of interest or talent or gift.

* build your capacity

* start early

* strive for excellence

LESSONS LEARNT

1. To lead Africa's transformation as an entrepreneur, i must look for problems to solve for Ghana.

2. I must have good mentors who are successful entrepreneurs.

Guess what; do you have a book u Re writing, my final of this series will be taking about the secret of self-publishing and leadership, Africa's missing art by Benard Avle of citi FM.

Akpah Prince

akpahprince.wordpress.com