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17th April, 2012
Airtel Partners IBM To Run Innovation Contest
Airtel Ghana has partnered IBM Ghana to rollout an innovative programme aimed at building awareness and educate students on mobile technology.
The programme which kicks off at the University of Ghana on Saturday, April 21 2012, seeks to collaborate to produce a pilot competition on mobile innovation with 50 students from the premier university coming up with ideas that use IBM Lotus Connections to develop an IT based solution to an identified problem.
Commenting, Philip Sowah, Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, said Airtel’s collaboration with IBM Ghana to encourage entrepreneurship as a means of curtailing graduate unemployment.
He said an agreed scenario and problem statement will be presented to the students prior to the event.
“Through the use of a collaborative tool such as Lotus Greenhouse, the students will be asked to generate innovative ideas on how to monetize the mobile platform to create technological products,” Mr. Spwah said.
Throwing more light on the competition, Donald Gwira, Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs at Airtel Ghana, said the best 20 ideas will be selected and those students will receive coaching/mentoring to prepare them for the panel evaluation.
Mr. Gwira explained that the ideas will be assessed by a panel of IBM and Airtel judges and the winner of this competition will be flown to Nairobi, Kenya to participate in the Innovation Discovery – Airtel Africa Workshop. Runners up in the competition will receive one year Airtel data subscription with all participants receiving Airtel and IBM paraphernalia.
Mr. Gwira added that “what we are doing with IBM Ghana is not a mere marketing drive but a very bold statement that we want to encourage all those IT savvy young people that there is so much more that can be derived from the internet.”
The programme which kicks off at the University of Ghana on Saturday, April 21 2012, seeks to collaborate to produce a pilot competition on mobile innovation with 50 students from the premier university coming up with ideas that use IBM Lotus Connections to develop an IT based solution to an identified problem.
Commenting, Philip Sowah, Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, said Airtel’s collaboration with IBM Ghana to encourage entrepreneurship as a means of curtailing graduate unemployment.
He said an agreed scenario and problem statement will be presented to the students prior to the event.
“Through the use of a collaborative tool such as Lotus Greenhouse, the students will be asked to generate innovative ideas on how to monetize the mobile platform to create technological products,” Mr. Spwah said.
Throwing more light on the competition, Donald Gwira, Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs at Airtel Ghana, said the best 20 ideas will be selected and those students will receive coaching/mentoring to prepare them for the panel evaluation.
Mr. Gwira explained that the ideas will be assessed by a panel of IBM and Airtel judges and the winner of this competition will be flown to Nairobi, Kenya to participate in the Innovation Discovery – Airtel Africa Workshop. Runners up in the competition will receive one year Airtel data subscription with all participants receiving Airtel and IBM paraphernalia.
Mr. Gwira added that “what we are doing with IBM Ghana is not a mere marketing drive but a very bold statement that we want to encourage all those IT savvy young people that there is so much more that can be derived from the internet.”
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