Launch & Scale Your Business With the Ashesi Venture Incubator
Centre for Entrepreneurship
From move-in day till graduation and beyond, Ashesi students learn to build innovative solutions to problems. The Centre for Entrepreneurship works with students and alumni to translate these innovations into successful ventures.
10%
of Ashesi students start businesses within a year of graduation
$900,000
in funding raised by Ashesi Venture Incubator fellows since 2019
$1,500,000
in revenue generated by Entrepreneurship Centre startups since 2019
The innovation journey at Ashesi begins with the academic programme, including a core curriculum that fosters critical thinking, engineering courses where students learn to design and build complex systems, and the Foundations of Design and Entrepreneurship course where students learn to apply design thinking to problem solving and business ideation. Engage fully and have fun. This is where it all starts!
The Ashesi Centre for Entrepreneurship offers a set of activities and events that help students explore opportunities, learn from industry experts, and fine-tune their ideas for venture creation. We encourage you to take full advantage of these resources.
The Business Skills Clinic connects student entrepreneurs with industry experts through one-on-one consultations. From legal, finance and marketing to venture capital and business development, these consultations will bridge the gap between classroom knowledge and real-world application.
The Ashesi D:Lab specialises in teaching students to apply design thinking – a powerful problem-solving tool – to complex problems in their community, society, and the world. In-house projects focus on a diverse range of innovative, emerging technologies, ranging from high-tech research in the agriculture sector to reinventing and reimagining social spaces on campus and everything in between. The D:Lab also supports student and faculty-driven projects at Ashesi and consults for a range of industry-driven projects in Ghana.
Our fireside chats are an informal way for students to engage with seasoned professionals on the entrepreneurship journey. These interactive sessions aim to inspire and inform while connecting students to the people and the enabling environment for innovation and personal growth.
This six-week bootcamp allows students to work in an interdisciplinary team and develop innovative ideas into commercially viable solutions that address real-world challenges. Participants will benefit from expert mentorship, interactive workshops, and hands-on prototyping.
Eight-week internships enable students to gain real-world experience with startups, entrepreneurial hubs, and venture capital/private equity firms.
The Student Venture Incubator provides seed funding, strategic business support, and access to a network of industry experts, faculty, mentors, and advisors to help students build and launch successful enterprises.
The Venture Market Challenge provides students with seed funding to develop innovative products and services tailored to the Ashesi community. Student teams will have the opportunity to showcase their business acumen and sales skills to generate the highest revenue or profit.
Ultimately, we support Ashesi innovators to become the founders of viable ventures through the Ashesi Venture Incubator.
The Incubator blends a practical, stage-appropriate 12-month curriculum and experience that expedites the development of skills, mindsets, and partnerships needed to build investor-ready ventures.
Smallholder farmers produce an estimated 70% of Africa’s food, but many struggle with low crop yields due to poor soil health. Alumna Audrey S-Darko 19’s Sabon Sake provides clean soil regeneration products and support initiatives that are currently helping some 7,200 smallholder farmers increase their yield.
The Centre for Entrepreneurship Centre helped propel her work; supporting her research through the Design Lab and then providing support to take her prototype to market through our Venture Incubator.
In 2021, Audrey also won additional grant funding from the Standard Chartered Women in Technology Incubator programme run by Ashesi’s Ghana Climate Innovation Centre. Watch her share her work below.
Beyond the one-year venture incubation programme at Ashesi, we work with Alumni to identify ways to grow their ventures. We do so through coaching, funding, and connections to a larger innovation ecosystem.
Startups founded by Ashesi alumni or who have Ashesi alumni serving in executive leadership roles may qualify to participate in our programmes.
Beyond the support of AVI, we recognise that your business may require target support and expert guidance. Our AVI-X program is designed to help you maximize revenue, streamline and scale operations, establish effective boards, and prepare for successful investment funding rounds.
Ashesi also hosts other entrepreneurship programmes that alumni entrepreneurs can apply to below.
The Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) is a cutting-edge national business incubator located in Ghana. The Centre, an institute of Ashesi University, was established in 2016 to support Ghanaian entrepreneurs and new ventures involved in developing profitable and locally relevant solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation by providing a supportive environment and tailored resources to empower our community to thrive and make a positive impact in the face of environmental challenges.
The Standard Chartered Women in Technology Incubator – managed by the Climate Innovation Centre at Ashesi – is Africa’s leading incubator programme for female-led and founded businesses. The incubator provides business management training, mentoring and seed funding.
Learn more…
Every year, seasoned executives serve as mentors, coaches, and investors to our student and alumni founders. We welcome expressions of interest to join our community. Get in touch with our team by sending an email to aec@ashesi.edu.gh.
