The Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions (ISEES) has trained bioenergy and biogas entrepreneurs in business designs and entrepreneurship under the Digital Global Biogas Cooperation (DibiCoo) Project in Accra.
The DibiCoo Project is funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme and seeks to provide an online business-to-business matchmaking platform for biogas and bioenergy entrepreneurs, project developers and researchers to enable them receive support from the European partners to grow their businesses.
It was also to create a sustainable market for renewable energy businesses in Ghana and Europe to grow, improve their market shares and become competitive.
The workshop was aimed at empowering bioenergy companies to improve their business modeling, management and entrepreneurial skills, market targeting and strategy to become competitive.
Mr Lovan Owusu-Takyi, Director of the ISEES in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said bioenergy and biogas entrepreneurs found it difficult to compete with the conventional systems, hence the need to train renewable energy companies in entrepreneurial and business development skills to meet the current environment.
He said ISEES was keen in strengthening the capacity of bioenergy entrepreneurs with technical and entrepreneurial skills using competency-based training modules.
Mr Owusu-Takyi said experts were brought down to Ghana from Germany, selected some companies under the DibiCoo Project as a demonstration case to empower them with the technical skills for them to partner with European companies in delivering high quality bioenergy services to the public.
Mr Kweku Agyekum, an expert in bioenergy and biogas and facilitator of the training took participants through entrepreneurial and business development skills, value proposition, design thinking, business model canvas development.
Others were market segmentation and targeting, business strategy, pitching and business plan development.
Mr Agyekum said participants were given the opportunity to use their own companies as a case study for them to understand the actual challenges facing them and develop appropriate strategies using given tools to improve their business management operations and become investment ready.
Mr Prince Kwame Asante, a participant and Chief Executive Officer of Greentech Innovation Limited expressed happiness saying, “The training will go a long way to help our biogas businesses thrive and become competitive.”
He urged the participants to take the lessons learnt seriously and apply them to their businesses.