Help 7 social enterprises create value from waste

STARTUP WEEKEND 

The Startup Weekend (SUW); is a two-day business and entrepreneurial training to equip identified startups with skills in business creation and management, networking, and pitching. It also presents opportunities for startups with similar business ideas to come together as teams to create sustainable businesses and climaxed with the selection of the best three (3) business ideas pitched at the end of the program to automatically onboard to the incubation program. This year’s Startup Weekend commenced on the Friday,18th and ended on the Saturday, 19th of November. 

Significantly, this year’s SUW started with an online pre-session on Circular Economy, Climate Resilience and Adaptation This was to open to selected startups to our expectations of their business ideas and help them fine-tune their ideas for the SUW. Startups were as well hinted on the next line of action towards the SUW and incubator program. The program climaxed with a pitch session where startups used their developed pitch decks to pitch to judges at the event. Judges gave comments on their pitch decks to help improve upon their business ideas. Pitches were scored by the judges and 3 businesses (Eco-Clean Ghana, Everything Rice and Ehmblehm Farms) with the highest scores were adjudged winners with an automatic opportunity to be rolled on to the next incubation program. A total of 25 startups including 6 females benefitted from the Startup Weekend program.

INCUBATION PROGRAM RECRUITMENT AND COMMENCEMENT 

The incubation program was launched on the 19th of November 2022, which signified the application process opened to the public for a period of a week. The process was very competitive in nature but in the end, an additional 7 applicants were selected for the Cohort 4 of the incubation program. 

Cohort 4 of the incubation program commenced on the 15th of December 2022. The session was to introduce the program to the selected incubatees and to lay down the structure of the incubation as well as the rules and regulations. The call commenced with an introduction session where both the panels and the incubatees introduced themselves. Nine (9) incubatees were online representing (9) business teams. The business teams were then given the contract of the incubation program and the handbook for the incubation program to guide their journey through the Recycle Up Ghana Incubation. 

GOAL SETTING SESSION

On the 25th of January 2023, the entrepreneurs were introduced to the Objective Key Results (OKRs) development and how to develop SMART key goals for their teams. The Incubatees were briefed on the meaning of SMART Goals and the various components. Incubatees were made to understand that a SMART goal should have the following components: S- Specific, M- Measurable, A- Ambitious, R- Realistic and T- Time Bound. The entrepreneurs were further introduced to the Objective Key Results (OKRs) framework and why it is important for entrepreneurs. During this session, the entrepreneurs were taken through the basic guidelines in setting objectives as well as key results for the objectives. Entrepreneurs were then taken through the best practices in setting OKRs.

IDEA VALIDATION SESSION 

On February 2nd, 3rd, and 16th 2023, the Idea validation segment of the six-month incubation session commenced, the series of training sessions were centered on helping the entrepreneurs validate their various business ideas. The session was divided into Four main parts that is: Root Cause Analysis, Problem-Solution Fit, Customer Persona, and Empathy Map and finally the Design Thinking session. The root cause analysis sought to aid the entrepreneurs to better understand the problem they are trying to solve. The Problem solution fit was aimed at making sure that the solution that they have made for the problem is needed and also the right intervention for the particular problem, The customer persona and empathy map also sought to allow the entrepreneurs to properly map out their customers, the needs and address their pain points. The design thinking session delved into making the entrepreneurs create a user centric solution that empathizes with the end user from the beginning of the product idea to the prototyping and testing phase. The three day session was an in-house session which sought at fostering cohesion with the trainers and also with deliverables . In attendance were 10 business teams with four being represented by females and 6 males.

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