The Principal Investigator of the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative, KNUST, Prof. Ellis Owusu-Dabo is convinced that Ghana holds abundance of opportunities.

He is therefore charging the citizenry, especially the youth to awaken their latent abilities for this purpose.

“There are greener pastures in Ghana. We need to challenge ourselves. We should identify a problem and have a better way of solving it. We believe that we can transform our world,” he said.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2^nd edition of the entrepreneurial training in sustainable business start-ups programme by the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative in partnership with Mastercard Foundation.

200 students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology are beneficiaries.

The two-week programme is under the Health Entrepreneurship pillar of the Mastercard Foundation Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative led by Prof. Wilberforce Owusu-Ansah.

The Health Entrepreneurship pillar is one of the three pillars of the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative.

The pillar aims to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and culture that supports entrepreneurs to create meaningful innovations and employment opportunities in the health sector. Through the interventions, promising entrepreneurs will be nurtured to build resilient health ventures.

The maiden edition benefited 400 students.

“The essence of the programme is to try and see if we can have some seismic change in our mindset, our thinking and aspirations when it comes to jobs.

“Even those who are going to look for jobs after here, we have something special for you and those who are open to set up their own businesses, equally so,” pillar lead, Prof. Wilberforce Owusu-Ansah said.

About the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative

The objectives of the Mastercard Foundation Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative are to Build and strengthen the capacity of healthcare students and professionals to meet the growing demand for Primary Health Care (PHC) in the health sector; enable students to acquire advanced skills in Africa across a broad range of disciplines critical for sustainable health sector growth and transformation; optimize entrepreneurial ecosystems in and through universities in Africa to launch and scale health start-ups to create jobs; develop a dynamic, sustainable, long-term network of leading African universities, alumni, government agencies, health care start-ups, and private sector partners working together to create dignified and fulfilling jobs across health ecosystems.

The project will further develop a dynamic, sustainable, long-term network of leading African universities, alumni and government agencies, healthcare start-ups, and private sector partners working together to create dignified and fulfilling jobs across health ecosystems in the next ten years.

KNUST is one of the eight partners of the Higher Education Collaborative in Health with the aim to contribute to all three pillars of the health strategy: Health Employment, Health Entrepreneurship, and Health Ecosystems.