The Vice President of the World Bank responsible for Africa, Dr Hafez Ghanem has visited the Accra Digital Centre as part of his three-day official visit to Ghana.
The Accra Digital Centre is a government of Ghana mini technology park under the Ministry of Communications with the mandate to drive Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship,
The visit to Ghana has seen Dr Hafez Ghanem have meetings with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Senior Minister, Minister of Communications, Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Central bank and other Senior government officials.
The Accra Digital Centre was partly funded by the World Bank.
Again, the Innovation Centre at the Accra Digital Centre, made up of an Innovation Hub (Ghana Innovation Hub) and a mobile Applications Lab (Ghana Tech Lab) under the Innovation module of the eTransform Ghana Project was funded by a World Bank grant.
The Managing Director of the Centre, Mr Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, together with his management team, welcomed Dr Ghanem and his entourage to the centre.
The World Bank delegation included the Country Director of the World Bank, other senior officials of the bank and the eTransform team from the Ministry of Communications.
Mr Ofosu Nkansah and Mr David Ofori, Operations Manager of the Accra Digital Centre led the World Bank Veep and his team on a tour of the centre.
The tour started at the Mobile Applications Lab of the Centre (Ghana Tech Lab) which is managed by an Innohub-Kumasi Hive joint venture, where he visited the Creative Space, Training room, Maker Space, Co-working space and interacted with incubatees and trainees who shared their training experiences with him.
He continued the tour in the Innovation Hub of the Centre (Ghana Innovation Hub), managed by an MDF West Africa, Bluespace and Ghana Technology University Consortium, where he interacted with more incubatees and Tech startups, some of whom are on a British Council entrepreneurship training programme.
The team also visited the Business Process Outsourcing Cluster, where they interacted with Management and agents of Ayo intermediaries and lastly to the technology SME Cluster where they interacted with firms like Kudigo which is into Fintech solutions.
Dr Ghanem and his team were impressed by the activities of the centre.
The Accra Digital Centre has now been oversubscribed with some 40 technology companies on-board, creating some 2000 digital and ancillary jobs.
The World Bank pledged more support for the centre in future.