Regal Jnelp wins 2024 Hollard Streetwise Finance Entrepreneurship Business Challenge
Hollard Ghana has organized its fourth Hollard Streetwise-Finance Business Challenge to assist young entrepreneurs with funding to support their businesses.
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The initiative is part of its corporate social responsibility.
The challenge saw ten entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to judges at the ceremony held in Cape Coast.
According to the General Manager of Operations at Hollard Ghana, Alexander Osei Mensah, the initiative aimed to bridge the gap between the working world and academia.
He stated that Hollard usually focused on campuses because they believed that the students were the next working generation.
"We usually focus on campuses because these are the places where we nurture the next working generations".
He stated that the initiative was also to get students to build confidence to venture and succeed in the entrepreneurship environment after they graduated.
He observed that Ghana and the African continent sometimes faced problems, whose solution lied with students.
He acknowledged that what they could do for such people was to get someone already in the field to guide and mentor them into the industries.
Mr. Osei Mensah explained that Hollard Ghana's activities evolved around other businesses saying it was in its interest that businesses thrived.
He noted for instance that Hollard Insurance subsidiary which insured businesses, individuals, and activities, needed businesses to thrive dtonbe insured.
"Hollard insures businesses, individuals, and activities. So if there are no businesses and individuals to insure, then we don't have a business. So we actually need businesses to be sustained. So that we can keep on insuring them. We do so by creating new ones and make sure the old ones continued to exist," he explained.
He stated that their vision was to "enable more people, especially Ghanaians, to create and secure better futures."
He said he believed that if Ghanaians were doing well, as a business, being an insurance company would automatically do well.
He stated that this was the fourth time this challenge had been organized, and the winners of the previous ones are really excelling.
He promised that they would continue to do their best by giving these young ones experience while they were in school.
He observed that the government cannot employ all graduates in Ghana, entrepreneurship was a sure way to tackle the unemployment situation.
He however appealed to the government to provide the necessary support for smaller businesses by way of tax exemption, capital injection, organized training, and development.
Beneficiaries
Regal Jnelp Innovations producers of natural hair and skincare emerged as the winner of the challenge with a score of 221 points and took a prize of 40,000 Ghana Cedis.
Zenags Organic came second with 203 points and received 20,000 Ghana Cedis while Career Path became 3rd with 203 points and received 10,000 Ghana Cedis.
The CEO of Regal Jnelp Innovations, Ms. Portia Sackey, stated that entering entrepreneurship should be a journey of persistence, consistency, and teamwork.
Ms. Sackey advised young people who want to enter the entrepreneurship world that they should be persistent, though there would be obstacles along the way. However, they should continue even when they come across risks.
"Entrepreneurship is not an easy journey. It has a lot of risks, but you have to know that so long as you want to do it, you don't have to stop. It doesn't just become like a big thing when you start. You have to be persistent, consistent, and believe in what you are doing," she said.
She also advised people to show up everywhere they found an opportunity. She emphasized that the more you show up, the more you would be known by many and one day be acknowledged.
She said that this amount from Hollard Insurance would help them get a tricycle that would deliver their goods within Cape Coast and the nearby towns that would need their product.
She also said that this money would also help them get an extra automatic machine that will help them fill quickly instead of using one in their previous working.
She appreciated the fact that policymakers are doing very well currently. She said that policymakers are helping small-scale businesses to register their businesses with FDA and others through Ghana enterprises and other agencies.
However, she pleaded policymakers to help them in terms of exporting and transporting logistics.
She said that sometimes when you want to ship something from Ghana to another country, the rate of shipping is sometimes more than the cost of the actual product.
Ms. Sackey expressed her sincere appreciation to Hollard Ghana for bringing such an initiative. She said that their contribution would help them achieve their goals by reaching a large market.