NEXTi2i | Ashesi Venture Incubator

Ashesi Venture Incubator

The Ashesi Venture Incubator is a program of the Ashesi Entrepreneurship Centre (AEC) with funding from the Master Card Fellowship. It is designed with the intention of developing hybrid businesses that are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

The incubator model is intentional about the development of hybrid entrepreneurs because it is not enough to just equip this new age of entrepreneurs with the skills to be profitable. To meet the urgent matter of sustainable development in emerging economies, businesses must also be in the position to deliver some level of social impact, be it through their supply chain processes, sourcing, or inclusive employment practices.

Thus, the Ashesi Venture Incubator is a one-year incubation experience for recent graduates and alumni of Ashesi University. Over the course of the one-year experience, fellows (incubatees) are provided with financial support, business development programs, and mentorship from local and global industry professionals.

AVI Mentors

2019 Fellows

Audrey Marigold S-Darko

Sabon Sake

Audrey is an agripreneur on the quest to improve food and financial security whilst mitigating farm waste emissions by developing carbon negative fertilizer for farmers and greenhouses derived from locally organic farm waste. Empowering farming communities by adding value to their abandoned waste is major focus and fulfillment for Audrey S-Darko.

Comfort Appiah

SHeK iMaginations

Comfort is a social problem solver who has been in the field since 2015. She is currently in her senior year at Ashesi University studying Business Administration. She has expertise in business research, branding, marketing, and financial accounting. She has also worked as a business coach for a student startup in Ashesi University.

David Damoah Boanuh

Beautiful Stories

David's journey into filmmaking was birthed from an interest in travel and lifestyle filmmaking but slowly grew into documentaries and narrative films (movie making). He has worked on collaboratives projects with brands including Apple, Unilever x Chelsea FC, Tony’s Chocolonely etc. He strongly believes that the mitigation of African Single Story is largely dependent on an industry that’s still budding; the African film industry and to contribute to this, he co-founded Beautiful Stories with the aim of representing Africa in the right light that the media fails at. To show the world that Africa has beautiful culture that stands the test of time and Africans are a people of strength, pride, resilience and of a strong bond that cannot be broken regardless of its history.

Derick Omari

Tech Era

Derick is a social entrepreneur who works in education, technology, social entrepreneurship, and disability field. He is the founder of Tech Era, social enterprise and leads the partnership, innovations and marketing team at Rakatalabs, a Tech Company. He is Co-founder and COO of Daachi & Stepping Stones, both non-profits. Derick loves teach music

Dzifa Anagblah

Bloom Bags

Dzifa, founder of Bloom Bags, is a recent graduate of Ashesi University. She is an exuberant, passion-driven individual who loves to solve complex problems through creative and innovative means. Her business, Bloom Bags and Luggage aims to make a difference in Ghana through continuous job creation, women empowerment and provision of development opportunities. Dzifa is a Ghanaian and loves to cook and travel.

Emmanuel Asaam

Gamma Energie Limited

Inspired by his passion for positive change and social issues, and a concern for environmental sustainability, with his entrepreneurial drive from a young age, Emmanuel began his research on energy, poverty and sustainability back in 2015, which lead to the creation of Gamma Energie in 2017. His role at Gamma Energie is currently a multifaceted one, as he is responsible for the development and execution of Gamma’s Operational and Business Development strategies. He has previous working experiences in project and supply chain management, and marketing, having worked with companies such as Vivo Energy (Shell) Ghana Limited, Scangroup Ghana and PayInc Group. Emmanuel enjoys cooking, watching and playing football, House Music and taking long naps.

Ezekiel Senye Hormeku

Tailored Hands

A graduate at Ashesi University College. Although Ezekiel has a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering, he has always found a way to connect business and engineering since these two fields have an underlying goal of problem solving. His passion of Entrepreneurship began after taking a Design and Entrepreneurship course in Ashesi He loves football a lot and a big fan of Christiano Ronaldo

Grace Amponsah

Bowney Initiative

Grace is the Founder and Executive Director of Bowney Initiative, a Non- Profit Organization whose mission is to build under-resourced adolescent girls to realize their educational and career goals. At Bowney, Grace is responsible for recruiting girls, delivering on projects, creating partnerships and donor opportunities to advance opportunities for girls in the program. She has a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Ashesi University College. Grace is a Dalai Lama Fellow, a Byron Fellow and a MasterCard Foundation Scholar. In her spare time, she loves to engage on issues surrounding girls empowerment, entrepreneurship and family life.

Kelvin Degbotse

Obsessive Innovations

A graduate of Ashesi University. His role encompasses everything from helping with strategy and the vision for the business and finding talent and partners , to leading product development . He is originally from Ghana and loves to read ,teach on innovation and to visualize the future. His firm’s mission is advance social justice using machine intelligence.

Kevin Blankson

SWoove

Kevin, founder of SWoove has always had a knack for business and has spent the last couple of years helping small brands create user centred experiences. He currently has logistics at the helm of his mind and will like to dedicate the next decade to building a robust logistics network that spans the continent of Africa.

Jennipher Alista Panashe

Colourful Plastics

Colourful Plastics is a company that recycles plastic waste to enhance asphalt for road construction purposes. A graduate of Ashesi University, Jennipher is an entrepreneurial mechanical engineer with a burning desire for environmental and sustainable development in Africa. Her role at Colourful Plastics is to maintain the vision; build and lead an effective team that will help impact the world. She hails from Zimbabwe and she loves hiking, travelling and swimming in her free time.

Nature Akoto

ViFarms

Nature is a graduate of Ashesi University (2017) with a background in Business Administration, who had his National Service at First Atlantic Bank Ghana as Project Support Officer in 2017/18. He currently manages a piggery in Agbledomi a suburb of Anloga in the Volta Region. Nature is seeking a funding to start a new commercial pig farm that would be producing high quality and affordable lean pork for pork lovers in Ghana and beyond and producing at least 1000 pigs in a year within the first five years of operations. Nature hails from Keta in the Volta Region and currently live in Agbledomi, about 40 kilometres away from Keta.

2020 Fellows