The Serwaa Kesse Girls’ Senior High School at Duayaw Nkwanta in the Tano North municipality of the Ahafo Region has emerged winners of this year’s National Business Pitch Competition (NBPC) held recently in Accra.
By this, Serwaa Kesse Girls will represent Ghana in the African edition of the programme slated for Nigeria this December.
The high-spirited contestants from Serwaa Kesse Girls’ SHS obtained the bragging rights after defeating 14 other schools in the highly competitive contest, and took home an amount of GH₵10,000 as part of their prize.
The Northern Business School in Tamale and Accra Academy came second and third respectively, and were also presented with other cash prizes.
The Northern Business School further took home two more awards at the competition. They were the Academic City Excellence in Teamwork Award and Excellence in Marketing Award. Aburi Girls SHS picked the Tomorrow Foundation Award (Tech – Innovation Award), with PRESEC, Legon, also grabbing the Project Management Award.
Additionally, the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation Award (Entrepreneurial Spirit Award) went to Archbishop Porter’s Girls Senior High School.
Entrepreneurial ideas
The NBPC is a platform dedicated to growing entrepreneurial ideas among the youth through innovative ideas and the use of technology.
The competition was organized by Junior Achievement Ghana, an NGO founded in 1919 in the USA to initially help immigrant youth to acquire skills in order not to be disadvantaged. The NGO now operates worldwide, empowering young people (students at every stage of education) to bring out their own business ideas aimed at solving human problems, nurture these ideas into something real that could be sold in the market.
Themed “Fueling Change Makers”, the students presented solutions to challenges facing agriculture, solar energy, sanitation and hygiene.
The solutions were in the form of mobile applications, appliances, products and services.
The ladies from Serwaa Kesse Girls’ SHS pitched on a product they had manufactured called Seksolin.
Seksolin, according to the students, is a device that would convert solar energy into electrical energy to power electrical appliances and also be used for clean cooking.
The confidence, innovation, and business acumen of the team set them apart from the other competitors.
The competition was also witnessed by investors, technology gurus, representatives of banks, telecommunications networks and non-governmental agencies.
Congratulatory message
Meanwhile, the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has congratulated students of Serwaa Kesse Girls’ Senior High School SHS for emerging winners of this year’s National Business Pitch Competition.
In a press release, the Minister wished them well, and described the feat chalked by the team as a manifestation of the effort being made by the government to boost the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the country.
“I must say that I am super excited for this feat chalked by the four young girls from Serwaa Kesse Girls’ SHS. I can see that our hard work in the STEM education has started yielding good results,” the statement said.
Madam Yaa Serwaa, the Headmistress of Serwaa Kesse Girls’ SHS, in an interview with the Daily Statesman, said she was “very excited and overwhelmed by the excellent performance by her students, especially as they were able to defeat some of the big schools such as PRESEC, St. Augustine’s College, Aburi Girls’, Archbishop Porter Girls’ and Ghana Senior High School, among others. This tells me that there is something good in Serwaa Kesse Girls.”
“It wasn’t an easy competition during the two days of the programme but we were determined to carry the day and I commend all those who helped in pushing us to this far,” Madam Yaa Serwaa added.
She paid glowing tribute to the contestants who are all in Form Two, namely Yarboi Lois, Millicent Adjei, Agyemang Yeboah Priscilla and Saah Sabbathina and their coach Mr. Yao Hinde Emmanuel.
