K-Poly students showcase business ideas
The Director of the Centre for Research and Development for Technology Incubation of the Kumasi Polytechnic, Dr Felix Engmann, has advised entrepreneurs to uphold the values of truthfulness and integrity in their dealings with their business partners.
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He said in recent times, integrity was gradually becoming a scarce commodity in the business setting and urged those who wanted to succeed as entrepreneurs to keep their words, as that would open doors for them and help them to succeed even when they did not have the requisite financial resources to nurture their businesses.
Dr Engmann gave the advice when the first batch of students pursuing the Bachelor of Technology degree at the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (IEED) of the Kumasi Polytechnic mounted an exhibition to showcase their business ideas.
“Your integrity is your trump card to succeed in the world of business, as trust is very important in business,” he said.
He also advised the students to consider partnering with other business-oriented people as it was better to join forces than to carry all the burden and risk alone.
IEED Director
The Director of IEED, Dr Gabriel Dwomoh, said the course was designed to help the students to venture into entrepreneurship after their education instead of waiting to be employed in areas where jobs were non-existent.
He explained that the course was designed as an antidote to the disturbing phenomenon of graduate unemployment in the country and to make the students come up with business ideas before leaving school.
According to him, as part of the demands of the course, the students were made to offer consultancy services to small and medium-scale enterprises and to also form their own business partnership.
The course was introduced in the 2013-2014 academic year with an initial intake of 23 students.
Feedback
Dr Dwomoh said feedback from the SMEs who received consultancy services from students trained by the school had been very encouraging and was hopeful that the students would also make use of these services themselves and set up their own businesses to employ more people.
According to him, the exhibition was an indication that the students were taking their courses, seriously and making good use of their time on campus.
The exhibition was to afford the students who were in their second year the opportunity to put into practice their business ideas.
Some of the products exhibited included textiles (tie and dye), sportswear, a demonstration of grass-cutter rearing, mushroom production, groundnut paste production and the production of local drinks such as ‘Sobolo’, and liquid soap.
Some are also into footwear production, beads making and publishing.