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The sixth edition of the Igniting Dreams Prize for youth-led businesses has been launched in Wa, with a call for applications from young people-led enterprises to participate in the awards scheme.
Igniting Dreams Prize is an entrepreneurship development programme that seeks to nurture and support promising young entrepreneurs in Northern Ghana through leadership training, mentorship, business development support and seed funding.
The Igniting Dreams Prize is an initiative of the Coalition for Positive Impact (CPI), a youth-led organisation in partnership with Noni Hub, an Information Technology (IT) organisation in Wa to nurture and support the development and sustainability of youth entrepreneurship in northern Ghana.
The Igniting Dreams Prize is awarded to promising businesses that demonstrated potential, viability and validity through competitive pitching and selection processes as part of the CPI’s annual Igniting Dreams fellowship programme.
A statement signed by Mr. Maazu Bayuoni, the Executive Director of the CPI and copied the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa, indicated that as part of the programme, fellows were selected to undergo practical business development training and coaching for a period before the winners of the prize were determined.
For the past five years, the Igniting Dreams Fellowship programme has offered entrepreneurship training to 30 young entrepreneurs with 22 of them receiving funding support through the Igniting Dream Prize.
“In its initial four editions, five (05) entrepreneurs are selected annually to join the Igniting Dreams Fellowship out of which, three (03) of them receive seed funding to scale up their businesses.
“Last year, the scope of the programme was widened, and 10 entrepreneurs were selected to join the Fellowship, out of which five (5) of them received seed funding for their businesses,” the statement said.
It indicated that this year 10 young entrepreneurs would be selected to participate in the fellowship with all the ten participants receiving funding support for their ventures while the top five winners would not only receive the highest funding but would also access a 6-month virtual accelerator programme, starting from February 2024.
The statement said the Igniting Dreams Prize is opened to young entrepreneurs operating within the five regions of the north aged between 15 and 35 years.
Also, one’s business should be established within the last three years, the he or she must be available to attend a virtual training from October – December 2023 and a physical boot camp in Wa in December 2023.
The statement added that businesses within all industries and the potential to create jobs and positively influence society could apply for the Igniting Dreams Prize no later than September 18, 2023.
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