The cohort 3 graduation comes after one year of incubation which included; 3 months of entrepreneurship classes, business portfolio management, peer exchange, technology and product development support, residential wellbeing retreat among others. The three female entrepreneurs in the cohort also took part in the Women Entrepreneurship Transformation Programme (WETP) with renown Ghanaian female executive coaches Renee Q. Boateng and Mono Asampong. The Women Entrepreneurship Transformation Programme, designed to unleash the untapped potential of female entrepreneurs to be transformational business executives, explored the following themes: self-reflection and empowerment, attaining voice, work-life balance and going the whole nine yards.
What’s next after graduating from the GCIC incubator? The entrepreneurs go on to join the Climate Innovation Enterprise Network of Ghana (CIENOG), a GCIC alumni network where they shall enjoy benefits such as recoverable grants of up to $10,000 per entrepreneur and GCIC business advisory services.
Speaking on behalf of the graduating class, Linda Lariba Atibilla, Founder of Hope Givers Ltd., highlighted some of the lessons she and her colleagues has learnt in their one year at GCIC.
“The rough road and the hill coming to GCIC serve as a symbolic reminder to us that running a business is not always going to be easy, there will be challenges and a few bumps along the way, but at least GCIC has equipped us with some of the skills we need to overcome these challenges.” She added.
Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) is a pioneering business incubator whose objective is to support entrepreneurs and ventures involved in developing profitable and locally appropriate solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in Ghana. The Centre’s key focus is on building businesses operating within the areas of energy efficiency, domestic waste management, solar energy, water supply management and purification and climate-smart agriculture. GCIC is part of the World Bank Group’s infoDev Climate Technology Program. Supported by the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands, the Centre is managed by a consortium led by the Ashesi University College and including Ernst & Young, SNV Ghana, and the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.