Ghana New Ventures Competition (GNVC) Officially Launches Summer Internship Engagement as Part of University Connections Programme

Accra, Ghana ? Monday, 28 June, 2004 ? Ghana New Ventures Competition (GNVC) has officially launched its inaugural Summer Internship engagement, one of four components of GNVC?s University Connections Programme. The University Connections Programme serves to further link and synergise the international and Ghanaian academic, business, and investor communities, also involving an experience-based Entrepreneurship Course, GNVC Tertiary Student Clubs, and a Graduate Consultancy programme to support GNVC Winners.

Applications to participate in GNVC?s first summer internship arrived from Ghana, the US, and Europe. Following a competitive selection process, Ms. Chevelle La Toya Dixon was chosen to join the GNVC team from June through August. Ms. Dixon is an undergraduate at Harvard University in the US, and she is concentrating her academic studies on economic development. While in Ghana, she will be conducting extensive research regarding entrepreneurship in Accra, best practices and effectiveness of business promotion in Accra, and an entrepreneurship resource inventory and analysis to determine unrecognised needs and opportunities in the private sector.

GNVC is an international not-for-profit organisation incorporated in Ghana and the US. The organisation was founded by a group of Ghanaian students in the USA who were involved with the leadership of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?s (MIT) $50,000 Entrepreneurship Competition in Boston, MA. Since its inception, GNVC has aimed to lay the networking and educational infrastructure necessary for entrepreneurs to pursue their goals, learning the skills to start businesses that will benefit Ghana?s people and economy.

GNVC meets these objectives by organising annual business plan competitions centered on training aspiring entrepreneurs to produce effective business plans, empowering them through mentors and role models in the Ghanaian business community, and enabling them to establish their own companies. GNVC also provides the most promising teams of entrepreneurs with start-up grants totaling thousands of dollars.

This year, GNVC awarded $10,000 in total start-up grant commitments to three winning companies: Supply Solutions, Greenfield Agro Ventures, and Rejuve Spa & Resort. In the previous two years of operations, GNVC catalysed the formation of three other new ventures in Ghana ? Strategic Accounting Solutions (SAS), Afroduct, and Peco Training Centre ? each of which received $1,000 in start-up grants. Therefore, the total number of new ventures funded by GNVC via three business plan competitions has become six.

For information: http://www.gnvc.org Or contact: cohen@gnvc.org Phone: 0244-975-352 or 021-258-795