Business & Entrepreneurship -Ghana, West Africa.
Exploration Seminar Aug 24-Sep 14th 2019
Contact Emer Dooley emer@uw.edu
Dates: August 24 – September 14, 2019
Locations: Accra and Cape Coast
Cost: $3,850 (includes credits and housing)
Credits: 5
Faculty: Emer Dooley emer@uw.edu
Eligibility: Open to all students!
Application deadline: February 15, 2019
For more Program specifics and where to Apply. Click this link.
Come to Ghana in West Africa and learn what makes one of the fastest growing economies in the world tick. Meet Ghanaian undergraduates from Ashesi University. Visit Accra, the capital city, a hotbed of entrepreneurship, where Google just opened its latest AI research center. You can do some design-thinking with Burro and meet cocoa and sustainability entrepreneurs. We’ll also visit the forts and castles that were the center of the slave trade, walk through the canopy of Kakum National Park and catch some of the amazing Ghanaian music scene.
Ghana became independent from Britain in 1957. By 2018, Ghana was one of the world’s fastest growing economies, with a GDP growth rate of between 8.3 to 8.9%. The country is one of the most stable democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa. How did this country’s economy transition from one that was dominated by the slave trade to become the high-tech center of West Africa?
Ghana is a Great Business Hub:
Many international companies operate here. Google just opened its first AI research center in Accra in November 2018.
And Accra is a Hopping Startup Center
We hope to meet with MEST, the most active incubator. We will also have an opportunity to meet with amazing entrepreneurs like Bright Simons who started mPedigree; Sangu Delle, one of the most accomplished young entrepreneurs on the continent and an Ashesi board member. We will also meet with Ashesi alumni entrepreneurs at Dream Oval (IT) and Heel the World (High-end Shoe manufacturing)
With an Amazing History and Culture
Ghana, originally The Gold Coast, has a long and torturous history of colonization and slavery. By some accounts 20% of the 10 million human beings trafficked between 1500 and 1870 were exported through the Gold Coast. We’ll visit Cape Coast Castle (Photo on left), a UNESCO world heritage site and its "gate of no return", which was the last stop for slaves before crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
We’ll also travel along the coast
and wander through Kakum National Park and canopy walk.
Ghana is home to a Terrific Music Scene
Click here to see some of the top stars.
And you’ll meet Young African Undergraduates Your Age
UW students will have lots of opportunity to interact with Ghanaian undergrads of their own age at Ashesi University and come away with a great sense of why they are on fire to build Africa.
