The Future of African Entrepreneurship x Amma Gyampo | S6 Ep.3

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, I'm Gauberland name of Agent Daniels. Welcome to the Sound of Accra Podcast.

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[00:00:40] So I'm going to move on to the days guest.

[00:00:43] So I'm joined by Amma.

[00:00:44] Is it Amma Jampo?

[00:00:45] Yep.

[00:00:46] I'm joined by Amma Jampo and she's the co-founder and CEO of Scale Up Africa.

[00:00:51] She's going to tell you all about in just a moment.

[00:00:54] Amma, thank you for coming in the show.

[00:00:56] Thanks for having me.

[00:00:57] Lovely to meet you.

[00:00:59] We had a friend that introduced you to me, so thank you very much and she doesn't probably want

[00:01:04] to be named but thank you to that special person.

[00:01:07] Yeah, so good to have been in the show.

[00:01:10] We've been not to.

[00:01:11] A lot, you know, the Gunna hustle.

[00:01:13] Yeah, China, you know, me, it's all about connecting young people and women to resources.

[00:01:18] It's a beautiful.

[00:01:19] It's constantly on calls, having meetings with donors of foundation.

[00:01:23] Try to figure out how best to do that.

[00:01:25] Yeah, I'm just trying to be in figure out how to.

[00:01:28] I mean, you're one of those rare guests that is hard to put you in the box really in

[00:01:32] terms of what you do.

[00:01:33] Like, yeah, you've got Scale Up Africa but then there's a lot of other moving parts that

[00:01:37] that are based around you, you know, 20 years experience in so many different verticals

[00:01:42] and ecosystems.

[00:01:43] It's quite hard to put you in the box.

[00:01:45] So tell us who's Amma Jampo and how we describe you in 60 seconds or this.

[00:01:50] Sure, so I am a mom of two.

[00:01:53] Got tickets.

[00:01:54] I moved to Ghana about 11 years ago.

[00:01:56] Okay, cool.

[00:01:57] But always been coming back to Ghana since I was a kid and Ghana's always had a very

[00:02:01] big influence on me.

[00:02:02] My grandparents, entrepreneurs.

[00:02:04] I had that bug from a very young age.

[00:02:06] Yeah.

[00:02:07] But for me at the moment, this current chapter of my life is really about like I said earlier,

[00:02:11] just really dealing with some advocacy around how do we plug the poverty gap.

[00:02:16] We have 12 million young people entering the job market every single year,

[00:02:20] plus the continent alone.

[00:02:21] That's a huge problem to fix.

[00:02:23] And despite the multinationals that we see all the big brother, you know, and continent,

[00:02:27] it doesn't commensurate with jobs, right?

[00:02:29] So how do we really tackle that particular problem?

[00:02:31] So that's what keeps me up at night and keeps me busy.

[00:02:33] Wow, thanks for sharing this really interesting here.

[00:02:36] I'm going to double tap on kind of like bridging like the wealth gap and things like that

[00:02:41] because it's so things are very important to me.

[00:02:43] I think it's partly why I'm excited to have you in a show because I mean,

[00:02:46] it's not every guest I get to talk about these real socio economic issues that we need to

[00:02:51] solve in Africa and I'm glad you're part of the solution.

[00:02:54] But yeah, we will definitely dive into that.

[00:02:57] I think I did have one of my previous guests who were signing a book through

[00:03:00] I for remotely.

[00:03:01] I think he's on that mission to really close that gap in terms of providing jobs,

[00:03:05] not like to the best, but to like to that everyday working,

[00:03:08] gone in and the African, because I think they're expanding,

[00:03:10] of course, Africa, not just Ghana, which is brilliant.

[00:03:12] So we'll kind of dive into that, you know, shortly in a bit more time.

[00:03:16] So I want to go straight into one of the events you went to recently.

[00:03:20] So I think it was Valerie, Valerie Ziven.

[00:03:23] And what's the company again?

[00:03:25] Wow, wow.

[00:03:26] And I get it.

[00:03:28] I didn't even know this like all of that.

[00:03:30] It's a whole thing.

[00:03:31] Really, it's a whole thing.

[00:03:32] I'm just just telling for those of those who aren't really aware of what Valerie does.

[00:03:36] I've been mad at her.

[00:03:37] Yeah, I mean, I just had so much of her.

[00:03:38] Yeah, it just tell that all these kind of like what she does look quite even a bit.

[00:03:41] Valerie, lovely isn't amazing.

[00:03:43] Look who I'm trying to put in her.

[00:03:44] She's also returning every time from the UK many years ago and she's really

[00:03:48] getting to hand dirty.

[00:03:50] Right, so she's been in the north.

[00:03:52] She's done sanitation work.

[00:03:54] A lot of advocacy, but at the moment, while her mobility is all about mobility, like how do we get more people

[00:04:00] transferring from clean to clean it and then gee right?

[00:04:02] How do we get more of these riders around riding bicycles that are powered by solar?

[00:04:06] So she's designed this wonderful, of your call and there are more designs coming up.

[00:04:11] But basically they launched their EVZOM right here in La Cra last week.

[00:04:16] And amazing launch, we just heard about the story that you know, meeting local engineers that she's employed.

[00:04:20] At team of fantastic, their scientists, they're building their designing, they're using their latest technology to really try and crack

[00:04:27] the mobility problem to be geostrific obviously, to look at carbon credits as a way to generate revenue for the country.

[00:04:34] They're designing amazing bikes to change into green fuel and green energy.

[00:04:39] She's just really shaking up the space.

[00:04:42] It's great to have a physical EVZOM in Ghana and all just really super exciting to be part of that particular launch.

[00:04:49] Especially going back to maybe a year or two ago, when I first visited her at Impact Top in our crowd.

[00:04:56] A smaller space, but she had just started up.

[00:04:58] So it was really great to see the journey from that particular space through this massive space in the world.

[00:05:05] You came from that small area to the machine start.

[00:05:08] The impact of the fantastic ecosystem as well to help startups do their thing.

[00:05:13] Amazing, it's really really incredible.

[00:05:15] And I think there's probably a lot of synergy in terms of what you do and what she does as well.

[00:05:20] Probably someone I do need to get to eventually in terms of interviewing, maybe not this season, but I mean,

[00:05:24] I had Anthony from Shack Express, you know, in the other day or maybe the other weekend.

[00:05:29] I think he kind of works together with her to an external extent.

[00:05:33] With the bikes actually by the same.

[00:05:35] Did he have a real deal with his company?

[00:05:36] Yeah.

[00:05:37] And then the season before the last season had a chat of quite Alex from many find, and I think they're looking into maybe getting into the EV space soon.

[00:05:44] I think I bumped into him in the last week.

[00:05:46] So I had a conversation with Anthony from Shack Express, he came in over there and he was talking about the bikes and working with Vadry.

[00:05:51] And I was quite inspired because I think he kind of wants to kind of get to me like a thousand EV bike, but another year was quite ambitious as well.

[00:05:59] And then a bumping into Alex from many find the Africa I think he's kind of looking towards a ledger.

[00:06:03] So there's a guy, I think what these industries that impact are by electric bikes.

[00:06:07] There's like a whole kind of like transition where everyone's kind of moving away from carbon, fuel, mission, you know, transportation.

[00:06:14] So kind of electric powered, you know, transportation which is quite interesting.

[00:06:18] What do you see in terms of Africa?

[00:06:21] Like how far away do you think Africa is from getting to that place where it becomes more mainstream because you know,

[00:06:27] you know, you ever in got Tesla like, you know, zones sometimes.

[00:06:31] I don't really need Tesla.

[00:06:32] I mean there's so many, I think the unique thing about why homeability is that they've really surveyed the marketplace.

[00:06:39] Yeah.

[00:06:40] They've designed a bike that suits our roads and our terrain and it's not really imported.

[00:06:44] I mean most of the components are local but of course they import some.

[00:06:47] So there's a huge potential for local scientists engineers, riders, young people who are doing all kinds of things,

[00:06:54] whether you have your own business and you want to have a bike or two to do your logistics.

[00:06:58] Or if you have a fleet of vehicles, it makes a lot of sense in terms of, you know, your move away from oil and gas, right?

[00:07:04] It just makes a lot of sense.

[00:07:05] Yeah.

[00:07:06] The price of fuel is extremely expensive and it's getting more expensive.

[00:07:09] Yeah.

[00:07:10] It's dirty, it's all clean.

[00:07:11] You know, we go to places like Nigeria people are switching to, you know, solar powered options.

[00:07:16] So I think there is, you know, there's a bit of a wave going on which is encouraging to see.

[00:07:21] We have a lot of sunshine and so it makes a lot of sense.

[00:07:25] So I'm sure there will be an acceleration of some of these activities.

[00:07:28] The EV vehicles, they're not really solar powered are they?

[00:07:31] Yep, there's solar powered batteries.

[00:07:33] Really?

[00:07:34] You could plug it to your home.

[00:07:36] Okay.

[00:07:37] Plug and you can recharge and you can replace them and you're good to go.

[00:07:41] Okay, so that actually solar powered these ones.

[00:07:43] Yeah, so the batteries can are removable and then you can plug them in.

[00:07:46] Okay, that's literally, I mean it's power by solar.

[00:07:48] That's amazing.

[00:07:49] That's a better case for Africa than there's an energy.

[00:07:52] 100% of the way.

[00:07:53] Very unique to the current situation and it works for a lot of young people.

[00:07:58] You see the riders around, I spot them every day.

[00:08:01] You see more people using them so definitely they're cool to ride.

[00:08:05] I've been on one, you know, I've been around a suit with a couple of the bikes.

[00:08:08] And you're riding or you're riding on the back of somebody?

[00:08:11] No, I was actually riding.

[00:08:12] Oh, okay.

[00:08:13] Yeah, cool.

[00:08:14] I grew up riding bicycles.

[00:08:15] Okay, cool.

[00:08:16] It's cool.

[00:08:17] You know, it's got the cool factor as well.

[00:08:19] Cool brand, cool, cool CEO, cool team.

[00:08:21] Yeah.

[00:08:22] And it's an Africa solution built for Africa.

[00:08:24] Really cool.

[00:08:25] I think.

[00:08:26] And they kind of like kind of ties in with kind of your kind of four new or four.

[00:08:29] Because it's sustainable development as an Africa.

[00:08:32] Talk us, I think it's a good segue to talk about scale of African now.

[00:08:35] I'll tell us a bit more about scale of African and what you guys do over there.

[00:08:39] Yeah, scale of Africa is basically a large partnership support organization.

[00:08:43] It's a very much focused on drawing resources into the continent.

[00:08:46] So we have a lot of conversations, partnerships with corporations and their sort of CSR departments.

[00:08:52] That's the state of emergency departments.

[00:08:53] And of course, donors, foundations, and the development of finance institutions to figure out how to attract capital for entrepreneurial activities.

[00:09:02] Right?

[00:09:03] How to create new marketplaces, how to be support entrepreneurs that are doing amazing bills.

[00:09:06] How do you also get away from their startup conversation?

[00:09:09] Because there's a lot of resources around startups.

[00:09:11] But not so much.

[00:09:12] When I really do well in terms of building middle-sized medium-sized companies,

[00:09:16] they are the companies that we need to focus on.

[00:09:19] A lot more of our attention is really looking at creating new markets and new innovations.

[00:09:24] And also getting more people up to the growth stage.

[00:09:26] Which I think it's really important to scale up business.

[00:09:29] That is very much the vision.

[00:09:31] So that's what it says on the tin.

[00:09:33] Yeah, talk us through.

[00:09:34] I mean, I mean, we both remember, talk us for the sake of the audience.

[00:09:37] Different between a startup and a scale up.

[00:09:39] Because I think it's quite important to know.

[00:09:41] Yeah, I mean, starting up is really the idea.

[00:09:43] We try to solve a problem.

[00:09:44] We try to get customers with first paying customer.

[00:09:47] They're trying to prove the model and hopefully making revenue on a regular basis.

[00:09:51] And that's what people are willing to pay for.

[00:09:52] Yeah.

[00:09:53] Your service or product.

[00:09:54] Scaling up is a whole other ball game, especially in Africa.

[00:09:57] It's extremely difficult.

[00:09:58] Every market is different.

[00:10:00] But there are commonalities, right?

[00:10:02] Those companies that are going to middle-sized or medium-sized have typically been around for a long time.

[00:10:07] They're really taking their time to get close to the customer, the problem itself that they're trying to solve.

[00:10:11] And they're really drill down into doing that.

[00:10:13] And not necessarily with the settle funding.

[00:10:15] A lot of it has been like, you know, the sold apartment.

[00:10:17] It just works.

[00:10:19] The mobile-furning Africa is a historian on its own, right?

[00:10:22] Like we 25 years ago, everyone was there.

[00:10:24] Or Africa's do poor for the other firms.

[00:10:26] You'll never work in Africa.

[00:10:28] And then, you know, we're looking at Kenya, innovator with mobile money and all these kind of things, right?

[00:10:33] So it's really about creating new marketplaces and new innovations for the marketplace here.

[00:10:38] We jump from landlines, we didn't really do landlines much, but it's straight to mobile.

[00:10:43] And it's going to grow from there.

[00:10:45] Amazing.

[00:10:46] Yes.

[00:10:47] It's incredible.

[00:10:48] And I'm any scale-ups in particular that you kind of admire in terms of like African-based or even Ghana-based.

[00:10:53] I mean, there are a few brands that we all know, you know, flood the flat-away to this world.

[00:10:57] It's pretty sad.

[00:10:58] Yeah, there's kinds of brands that everyone talks about.

[00:11:01] But we could do a lot better.

[00:11:02] I mean, there's a lot of incubation and acceleration activity.

[00:11:05] But it doesn't necessarily translate into...

[00:11:07] Yeah.

[00:11:08] That kind of medium-tier scale-up, you know, growth phase that we really need to see for the job creation.

[00:11:15] Like I said, talk really young people join the workforce every single year.

[00:11:19] So we have a lot to do to make sure we can create the jobs at that scale of medium-to-large scale businesses to absorb those young people.

[00:11:27] It's very interesting case you have here because Africa is there.

[00:11:30] I mean, let's touch on Africa's labor force now.

[00:11:32] And it's a good segue.

[00:11:33] So I mean, I think it's a very interesting case we have here because Africa is there the youngest continent in the world.

[00:11:38] And then you have so many people trying to get jobs.

[00:11:40] I mean, average person maybe 18, I think, age 18.

[00:11:43] And you have a lot of people who are unemployed and trying to get jealous.

[00:11:46] But who also, you know, come from a culture background where education is heavily pushed.

[00:11:51] And there's not enough that work experience and, you know, skills upskilling done.

[00:11:55] It's such an interesting scenario here in terms of the labor force.

[00:11:59] Tell us maybe how you scale up Africa, how to kind of solve that problem in terms of like trying to help the labor force.

[00:12:08] Yeah, I mean, we don't do so much on the labor side but we do believe in creating value chains and marketplaces.

[00:12:14] Any cost assistance that would absorb young people.

[00:12:17] So that would automatically mean we'd have to do some level of skills development.

[00:12:21] That is practical skills development.

[00:12:23] So that's the approach that we take to it is not so we're not heavy on the skills training.

[00:12:27] But when it comes to creating a marketplace or something new, we would look at obviously being an intentical partners to make sure that young people involved are trained adequately to deliver the service or the product.

[00:12:38] Why do you think this problem exists in our momentum of the African labor force and not having really enough employment opportunities for the African people?

[00:12:46] Yeah, it's just a structure of the economy really.

[00:12:49] It's the way we have a lot of importation based businesses.

[00:12:52] That means jobs outside of Africa.

[00:12:54] It can't do.

[00:12:55] I mean if it's imported, you're just shipping.

[00:12:58] Shipping logistics production is not coming from outside.

[00:13:01] And we are consuming here.

[00:13:03] Me or I were not really producing here.

[00:13:05] So it's really about the shift of our balance.

[00:13:10] So I believe that we do need to be competitive in what we can do.

[00:13:14] We probably can't compete with China on manufacturing ever.

[00:13:17] But for what we can do, our creativity, our music, our culture, our heritage, the tourism, the landscapes, our film industries, for example.

[00:13:25] We've been lobbying for a long time for example for tax credits.

[00:13:29] And incentives to invite people to come into Ghana for a stop to shooting Ghana.

[00:13:33] It's a whole campaign from the National Film Authority to really get Ghana more competitive in terms of Jamaica and South Africa as our closest competitors for film.

[00:13:43] Right?

[00:13:45] If it was a essay because they have incentives.

[00:13:46] Sure.

[00:13:47] Even though it's much further away, Jamaica is also the other side of the pond.

[00:13:51] So how does Ghana become more competitive to really get people to come and shoot in Ghana?

[00:13:55] It's a policy to come, it's a long term conversation.

[00:13:58] I hear it's coming to a head now so we're hoping to get a bit of an incentive package for people to come and shoot in Ghana, for example.

[00:14:04] These are all some of the things that would help us to produce more locally.

[00:14:08] But it's just the way the system is setup.

[00:14:10] It's just very import heavy.

[00:14:12] take change that data make. I guess this is a whole board game. I mean, and it's looking

[00:14:15] out from industry to industry perspective, industrialization really like from manufacturing

[00:14:21] to factories to film, media. I mean, if an Ido is a little bit near a few times, there's

[00:14:26] an onion, you want to kind of like-

[00:14:27] Just last week, you was here?

[00:14:28] Yeah, I heard. Yeah. And essentially, I think he wants to kind of follow maybe a Tadaparees

[00:14:33] foot, so he really launched like a, did you?

[00:14:36] Yeah, interesting, right? I don't know where that's going to be because of Crosse.

[00:14:39] Crowd in the city. It's just outside of a crack. I'm sure.

[00:14:43] In the vault area, somewhere else? Well, we hope that it's a great job for the local people not just

[00:14:47] again, it's exporting, you know, talent from the West, you understand?

[00:14:52] Which is probably something that we need as a kind of like, stop doing and trying to get the

[00:14:56] young people or the people from Ghana African vault, which is something that, yeah,

[00:15:01] I mean, something that really really is close to my heart because I feel like maybe

[00:15:05] I might walk into, maybe a restaurant or something and yeah, you do see maybe Ghanaians

[00:15:09] or whatever doing the job but maybe that the service is not very good. So maybe I'm more inclined

[00:15:13] to go into, you know, restaurant or somewhere run by a Lebanese or whatever because I know the

[00:15:19] services in way better, but that's something that we need to work on in tenderlight. Like the skills

[00:15:24] that our own people have, I mean, he's improved that. I mean, I'm really enjoying this

[00:15:28] conversation. Now, you mentioned something about 120 million pounds or dollars of funds for

[00:15:33] African women and regards to the labor force. Could you tell us more about that?

[00:15:37] Yeah, I think we have a lot of programs that are designed in Washington and London and Brussels

[00:15:42] and other places and they're not always very fit for what we require and they're not very ambitious

[00:15:48] in my opinion. So the whole point is that we need to see a lot more programs that are at the level

[00:15:54] of the problem, right? So when we're doing piecemeal projects and, you know, they're not quite

[00:15:59] solving the problem. I feel like we're just sort of... It's like a temporary fix. Yeah, it's a temporary

[00:16:03] zone that it fits those and it's like we're all doing activities, we're doing something. But

[00:16:08] the impact is not necessarily there. We see that from, from our figures, you know, with all

[00:16:12] the programs we do for entrepreneurs, how many of them are actually getting to this level where

[00:16:15] their median size, they're chatting capital. If you look at the statistics, it's actually very, very

[00:16:20] low. And it's kind of where you, where you guys coming, trying to get them out, that start

[00:16:24] up phase more to kind of the SMM, small to medium, more kind of medium to kind of establish.

[00:16:29] And it's a quantity conversation. It's not the number of entrepreneurs that you're training or

[00:16:34] supporting, which everyone is obsessed with. It's really about the quality. The ones that have the

[00:16:38] potential to really have that high job creation potential, they're the ones we really need to

[00:16:43] take a take time to support and give them all the resources required to help them along their way,

[00:16:48] you know? Yeah, it's really, really interesting stuff that you're today talking about now.

[00:16:54] What are the top skill sets that you feel like entrepreneurs on the continent even going

[00:16:59] to me? Like, what's the kind of the most common ones you run into that they really need?

[00:17:03] Gosh, I think confidence is huge. Really? Just confidence? You know, we were growing up,

[00:17:08] you know, we all had a Saturday job or, you know, you worked a pizza heart like I worked for

[00:17:12] pizza for years, you know? So, so we all get that level of real exposure and experience in the

[00:17:17] working environment, it helps with your conversations, the way you respond, the way you behave,

[00:17:22] the way you carry yourself. I think that's really missing for a lot of young people because they don't

[00:17:26] get the opportunity to get the real world's work experience, right? Talking to a boss, talking

[00:17:31] to customer, talking to supplier, learning how business works at a young age. All of these things

[00:17:36] I think are, you know, have an impact on the way that we carry ourselves through the world of

[00:17:41] business or work. So, I think confidence is a huge, it's over the soft skill, it's like a, it's a

[00:17:45] course skill and it translates to things like communication, how you write, how you speak, how you

[00:17:51] know, I contact, it's also the way we're raised, you know? So there's a lot of,

[00:17:56] there are a lot of hurdles to jump before getting to the workplace. I think that, you know,

[00:18:00] the soft skill, the speaking, the communication, the confidence, those are the key things that

[00:18:05] would carry you and transfer to other areas of your skillset, you know? Yeah, very interesting

[00:18:10] you mentioned that, I mean because we heavily push, especially for Africans, heavily push education,

[00:18:15] over-emphasis on educational but it's not enough emphasis on in terms of like developing the skills

[00:18:19] or getting real-life experience, internship, so, you know, internships and all these

[00:18:24] cut the stuff. We're not really doing enough when we should be doing more of this. Yeah,

[00:18:29] hopefully this can change soon. Okay, cool. I'm really enjoying this competition, that's kind of

[00:18:33] move on to the next bit. So I kind of want to talk about what you're, you know, what you're

[00:18:38] growing in terms of impact investing Ghana, so I think you enjoy the boards recently, was that right?

[00:18:42] So tell us about, you know, what they do and you're all there and how you're trying to make impact.

[00:18:47] Yeah, so impact investing Ghana is really about the ecosystem, like what's missing in the

[00:18:52] ecosystem within the context of making impact. So sustainable development everyone talks about

[00:18:57] SDGs all the time, is job creation, is the environment, it's communities, it's industrialization,

[00:19:03] it's innovation, all of the touchpoints we've all sort of come to recognize all the science SDG

[00:19:07] and the numbers or what they mean. So scale up Africa is really about, sorry, impact investing Ghana

[00:19:13] is all about again mobilizing a finance that would enable us to fix some of those problems.

[00:19:20] So we look at entrepreneurs themselves on the demand side, they demand capital,

[00:19:24] you have the intermediaries between them, the advisors are consultants and the hubs that support them

[00:19:30] and they have the supply side which is the investors themselves. So how do we engage all of

[00:19:35] those parties, the three parties to kind of come together to plug the gap for funding?

[00:19:40] So it's correct in the dots, really. It's really connecting the dots. So for example we have

[00:19:44] a wholesale fund that we just launched this year and it means that we're really looking to

[00:19:49] support more fund managers to then deploy capital to ventures that are ready. So that's a wholesale

[00:19:56] high-level conversation, it's $75 million, we're trying to raise that fund so we can support more

[00:20:00] fund managers to go on to invest, especially emerging fund managers, there are very few female fund

[00:20:06] managers. So we're trying to plug these gaps and make sure that we're doing all the right things.

[00:20:11] And we have various collaborative as well, so we have an entrepreneurship support organization

[00:20:15] collaborative for the ESO collaborative is a bit of a mouthful but it's again bringing

[00:20:19] all the public and private sector hubs and accelerators and government agencies that are

[00:20:24] working on entrepreneurship and job creation to come together as one sort of informal body.

[00:20:29] So we now have that, that convening power, we've been going for five years now.

[00:20:33] So it means that we're now sort of talking to any IP, that's a national entrepreneurship and

[00:20:37] innovation program, gonna enterprise agency, there's the two public sector agencies.

[00:20:42] And they're working with the hubs, the hub and networks and all the others

[00:20:47] that work towards entrepreneurship support in the country. So that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

[00:20:53] We're part of a global conversation around impact investing which is super important where

[00:20:58] we're part of a global network or the GST which is a global steering group on impact investing.

[00:21:02] He did the UK and we're part of that. That's really, really well it's quite busy and

[00:21:07] it's a lot there's a lot of free free letter acronyms out there. I know there's a two minute.

[00:21:12] I know you're like a new teacher. WFDIC is two many years. So these funds are

[00:21:20] like where they come from? Are they coming from the continent or they coming from foreign

[00:21:25] wow. It will be a mix. We're looking at pension funds. You know, a lot of this is long term

[00:21:30] advocacy and policy changes. If you're looking at a local pension funds, for example,

[00:21:37] how do we unlock local pension funds? Take a little bit of that income to go into impact

[00:21:44] related projects right? Yeah. As opposed to just buying tea bills and we've seen what's

[00:21:49] happening with tea bills in this country. I think we've had major issues with the financial system

[00:21:53] and people have lost out. What are some of those investments? What do you know? Treasure bills.

[00:21:56] Treasure bills are okay. So that's the traditional way of doing it but how do we then shift

[00:22:00] some of that income to impacts investments? So we are job to really have those conversations,

[00:22:05] but sometimes difficult conversations. You're trying to change people's minds and

[00:22:08] and expose them to the fact that there is a huge opportunity if we can get impact right. It

[00:22:12] means that we can create outside opportunities for more people and get a good return from

[00:22:16] those kinds of investments. And then we also have the DFI's, the Foundations, the

[00:22:21] Development of Finance institutions also coming into some of these conversations as well.

[00:22:25] Again, more freelternational. Yeah, bringing fried. It's brilliant. So in terms of the fund,

[00:22:32] so is this sort of funds that are distributed to these entrepreneurs, these entrepreneurs,

[00:22:39] is it more like venture capital perspectives or like angel investing perspective or is it just like

[00:22:46] this seed money? It's getting very complicated now. We're talking about whole-sale funds.

[00:22:51] So that means we're talking about fund managers. We're not talking directly about

[00:22:55] fund managers are those who manage venture funds. Basically we're looking at funding more of those

[00:23:01] funding or these to then go on to support entrepreneurs within their own portfolios.

[00:23:08] How many of them tend to see that you return or see these startups or companies making an

[00:23:13] exit and get them money back? Excess on a touristy, in Africa, full stock. I think it's less than 10

[00:23:20] percent which is very low. So again that's something we need to figure out. How do we actually

[00:23:25] get more access? How do we incentivize more exits? How do we structure more exit? It's a problem.

[00:23:30] What really incentivizes some of these investors to invest in these African businesses

[00:23:37] which have a, let me look at the charts of doing exit and then to get their money back?

[00:23:44] It's really hard. It's really hard to actually answer a question. I probably don't have

[00:23:48] answers to that one. That's okay, but I guess we can probably just assume that they probably

[00:23:53] believe that Africa is something is happening under content and they believe some of these businesses

[00:23:57] coming up. If they hit a spot, that can really give them a big payoff for a big payday.

[00:24:03] Yeah. I think now on this table, once it's year revenue, it's not like five years ago where you

[00:24:08] could take a chance and be really patient. Now people want to see, you're solving a real problem.

[00:24:12] People willing to pay for it on a regular basis and there's money coming in. That is also

[00:24:17] very good indicator to potentially growing a marketplace for that particular solution.

[00:24:23] Because you could just have a really good pitch that can really pitch while and so, sorry,

[00:24:26] stuff to invest in them. And the money just goes. Yeah. The one one raised is just nothing.

[00:24:31] Yeah. It's actually interesting. Very very interesting. Okay, and then tell us about the other.

[00:24:36] There's another one that's usually involved in this well. And that is the one called

[00:24:41] where we go. Where are we reach for change? Tell us about that.

[00:24:45] Yeah, so reach for change is a Swedish organization that is global and it's all about supporting

[00:24:49] young people through social enterprise. So, you know, from there's so many entrepreneurs that

[00:24:56] reach for change supports and we have several offices across the country, across the

[00:25:01] continent, across the globe actually. And it's really about building the concept of social enterprise

[00:25:06] and helping social entrepreneurs to do what they have to do. So, from anything to paying

[00:25:11] their salaries to just give them a bit of space to focus on solving the particular problem

[00:25:16] to, you know, training as a part and sort of hands on advice that's what reach for change does.

[00:25:21] Great. What are some of the biggest problems that you've thought that entrepreneurs should be

[00:25:25] solving on the continent? Basics, you know, I think COVID taught us basics, you know, food shelter,

[00:25:32] accommodation, health, financial services. Yeah. Financial services? I mean, as you feel that's

[00:25:39] not kind of solved with my money. Yeah, it's getting better. But things like even insurance,

[00:25:42] like a lot of people are very exposed to risk and I'm sure there's a lot more space for

[00:25:47] insurance solutions coming, especially at the micro level where you pay me just a dollar a week or

[00:25:52] something towards some cover, right? You know, farmer in a range too much, you've lost your, of course,

[00:25:58] if it doesn't rain enough, you've lost your, yeah. If, you know, it's like that. It's so mirror-esque.

[00:26:02] Right. So people need to be covered. So I feel those dollar space for basic services to be

[00:26:07] absolutely. Yeah. I mean, shout out to some value from Flurry. I think he's trying to solve the

[00:26:11] health insurance problem, which is pretty good. And you mentioned COVID, let's let's go there.

[00:26:16] I mean, I believe you were in the BBC interview a few years ago, talking about COVID and the impact

[00:26:20] on Africa or Ghana. How have you seen kind of like COVID impact continent in the country and how

[00:26:27] have like, in enterprises and entrepreneurs responded to COVID or pivoted or kind of brought themselves

[00:26:33] out of the pandemic? I think we definitely see a shift to digital. A lot more people are very familiar

[00:26:39] with digital solutions tools. So that's been great to see more people embracing digital. It makes

[00:26:46] them a lot more efficient and open to other solutions and services, right? So I think that's been good.

[00:26:51] I still feel we missed the boat in terms of production locally, but it's very difficult to

[00:26:57] produce locally. I mean, the cost of production is very high. So I can see why that's still

[00:27:01] being a problem, but I still feel there's potential to add value to what we have locally and

[00:27:06] maybe replace some of the things that we import currently. So I think that's still an opportunity

[00:27:11] that people can still look at and they'll advantage of. Yeah. They get right.

[00:27:15] Definitely. I think I'm excited to see a lot more local businesses pop up because I feel like we

[00:27:21] haven't enough of them and we kind of import so much. We do have to import so much. I mean, how are

[00:27:26] you important 10 tomatoes? We've got tomatoes. Yeah. I don't get that. Yeah. So I think we do get

[00:27:33] to see a lot more of that. We don't quite have been a training, actually, of women in our

[00:27:37] group business to help them to share them what technologies they're available to drive their fruits

[00:27:41] right or preserve their fruits or can. They're like, you know, you produce something just

[00:27:45] can it? You know, there's so many technologies that are quite accessible and we have so

[00:27:50] an interesting institute where we have a food research institute that nobody ever uses, apart from

[00:27:55] people coming in from abroad. But fantastic results. Like if you want to produce something,

[00:28:00] there's so many technologies and there's so much local knowledge that you could tap into

[00:28:05] by just visiting a local office. People don't really know about these things. So there's a lot of

[00:28:09] potential, you know. But it's just really about again, sometimes information is not really

[00:28:13] readily available. So it's really again about connecting those dots and figuring out what's

[00:28:18] available. People being aware of it, maybe the government making people more aware of these resources.

[00:28:22] Yeah that could be a simple, simple way. No hang it for you. Yeah, it's not for the reading

[00:28:28] itself. I got caught to essentially, he's one of the biggest industries that we have in that

[00:28:34] food. Do you, in terms of you kind of like being like a, you know, kind of like championing

[00:28:41] women more women in entrepreneurship? Do you feel like that's an area that needs to be,

[00:28:47] you know, a lot more occupied by women? I think it is. I think it is. I think there are a lot

[00:28:52] of women in the early stage of production. Right. It's agriculture's a value change from

[00:28:59] production to export or trade. Yeah. It's a whole chain right. So typically women are producing,

[00:29:04] but they're not getting the most out of that chain. Why are they getting the most out of the

[00:29:08] chain? Yeah because it just gets more complex as you go along, you need machinery,

[00:29:12] you need to evaluate me is more capital and we don't have capital. So then it's like a, yeah,

[00:29:16] I can talk about this all the way. You get the drift. It's just like that sort of cycle. So

[00:29:20] we do need more equipment, more training, more support for women in agriculture. So get them

[00:29:25] closer to the top of the chain, for the more money and carry the site in economy as

[00:29:30] as they do anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite interesting because I'm of course I have

[00:29:34] chat with Anthony from Shack Express and he was talking about getting more women

[00:29:39] involved in being writers and he feels like he's kind of made a change of that because I think

[00:29:44] now I think most of his drive drivers are women because of the impact that is actually making

[00:29:48] nice business. And customer service, the way they treat people. Yes. I mean, I'm not

[00:29:53] putting the streets you for like there needs to be more women involved, especially in Africa or

[00:29:56] Ghana. Mm-hmm. Well, half the population. So it makes sense. It's not even like a massive

[00:30:02] gender thing but there is there is there are a lot of preconceptions and things that hold

[00:30:07] women back from approaching some of these opportunities. You know? So it's not like,

[00:30:13] yeah, we're half the population. So it's like why not? Sure, based on the same. You know, if you can

[00:30:17] perform and deliver the service and you're trained to do it. Yeah. It's just really just statistically

[00:30:22] it's just because what women to be involved in contributing towards the economy is a can.

[00:30:27] Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I really enjoy this conversation about what would you say

[00:30:32] in terms of Africa in the coming years? I think we're really like reaching like a tipping point

[00:30:37] where technology has really improved infrastructure has improved. You've got the best work. We

[00:30:42] locate it and it's a lot of exciting things happening on the continent. What in terms of

[00:30:48] a social enterprise, social investing perspective? Can I know that's kind of like where kind

[00:30:54] of you kind of lie in the kind of ecosystem? Where do you see Africa and the coming

[00:30:59] coming for the next five years? Well, where do you see that look at what kind of changes you see

[00:31:03] come happening in that area if you will? Yeah. I think there's more conversations around

[00:31:09] the crisis that we're facing in terms of the youth crisis. Like we have a massive demographic

[00:31:14] opportunity like we're young. We're big. There's a lot of us. You know, so how do we actually

[00:31:20] use that to add advantage? Because there's one of the biggest advantages we're ever going

[00:31:23] to have. Yeah. Young is continent. Young is continent, aging population everywhere in the global

[00:31:28] morph. Yeah. So how just generally even Asia, South America, how do we leverage that opportunity

[00:31:35] to serve and provide value to the majority of the world and build wealth from that opportunity?

[00:31:44] So I feel like there should be a lot of who happen. But there should definitely should be more

[00:31:51] conversations and action around sustainable development of African countries and really

[00:31:58] specifically looking at the youth development of opportunity. Yeah, I think the UN kind of spearheads

[00:32:04] that quite a lot in terms of like sustainable development goals. Yeah. It's quite interesting now.

[00:32:09] Brilliant. Brilliant. I've enjoyed this. So what would you say, your plans for 2024?

[00:32:17] 2024. Yeah, just really ramping up on what we've done already and we have a film coming out. It's

[00:32:23] like a short film. We had a diaspora youth film mentorship program last year.

[00:32:30] Well, two years ago actually, we just finished a pilot short film. It's called Diaspora Ice.

[00:32:36] Yeah. We supported our name young people who would come out of school, film school.

[00:32:42] A few years ago to just really connect them to mentorship opportunities and we're lucky enough

[00:32:46] to have a couple of people like Nana Mensa from the different mat on Netflix. And I'm a key

[00:32:52] I've ever been there. South America. A free art as well who's a costume designer. She was a costume

[00:32:58] designer on the woman king with value Davis. So they were all sort of mentors who would be in through

[00:33:03] obviously very experienced. They were able to share a lot with these young kids as to how they

[00:33:08] can make it in the film business. So the combination of that has been the production of this

[00:33:14] Diaspora's pilot episode, we're just coming out in March 2024. So we're lucky to launch that.

[00:33:21] I really see how we can get more kids involved in subsequent productions funding for knitting.

[00:33:28] So it's been good for us to sort of work with them to develop a particular specific production.

[00:33:34] So I hope that goes well. So we're launching that and so we do more in the creative industry,

[00:33:38] sector, and more in the act sector as well just getting more people exposed to skills opportunities,

[00:33:44] access to productive assets like drying machines and getting more people involved in our

[00:33:49] philanthropy unit work as well. So people can join us and learn what we do connect with what we do,

[00:33:54] visit Ghana, connect with the summer projects and really just build some more relationships

[00:33:58] within the philanthropic sector as well directly so they can know what to expect from scale up

[00:34:03] Africa and the networks that we have to really build on this sustainable development goals.

[00:34:07] Busy busy 2024, Emma. Oh, I should think so. So what interesting because I think I was at the Black

[00:34:15] Star International Film Festival. This is a screen. Not the festival, not the conferences, but they

[00:34:20] had like a middle screening one night at the old skate park. You know, yeah, the former

[00:34:26] fragile apple kind of freedom park and they did like a thing called shorts and shorts and I'll

[00:34:30] speak into the the director over there and just talking about the conferences happening at

[00:34:35] Timbers so and then you're mentioning that mentorship, training and workshops and stuff and

[00:34:40] when I watched the short films, I just I was just blown away with the quality of the picture right?

[00:34:44] Yeah, and then she's now in scripts, the talent that actors made as like a lot of talent.

[00:34:49] I was like if this was like it was like a dedicated platform like Netflix, I could just pay

[00:34:53] to stream short films. I'll put on the sea paper because the quality was just fantastic.

[00:34:57] So that's one feedback I gave to the director and she was shocked. I was like how are

[00:35:00] pay for this? I mean you coming from me, I'll pay for it. Kind of just tie the same old stuff.

[00:35:05] Right. But yeah, I feel like there's so many diverse stories that we can recognize ourselves here.

[00:35:10] Yeah. Just again, just hopefully underfunded and under supported. So like we do,

[00:35:15] we try to do our best to just really hold the hands of this next generation.

[00:35:20] Yeah. Of film producers and filmmakers to kind of just give them the opportunity to do something

[00:35:25] tangible and then take it to the marketplace. So I will really proud of that cohort and we hope to do more.

[00:35:30] Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing because there's a lot of underrated,

[00:35:35] overlocked creative talent in the continent and in Ghana, but say,

[00:35:39] well, it's film acting with its music whenever design so underrated. So overlocked and we need people

[00:35:47] like yourself to really kind of help to connect the dots and leverage that. So thank you for

[00:35:53] the contributions to make it to the continent. Thank you. Cool. I will do. Finally,

[00:35:58] why can everyone connect to a scale up Africa? Is there any announcements? I believe you've

[00:36:04] shared some of the kind of services that you guys provide. This is kind of anything else that you

[00:36:08] haven't touched upon. We can kind of talk about that as we write on it. Oh, really.

[00:36:12] We have our website. We are scale up Africa.com and the LinkedIn is probably home for us.

[00:36:17] So check out my LinkedIn password. Am I a jampo? On LinkedIn? Am I a my Amazon with two

[00:36:22] amps? Very specific about that? Ashanti? And you know, LinkedIn at scale up Africa as well.

[00:36:29] Okay, brilliant. I mean we'll have all of that on the show notes for everyone. So you guys can

[00:36:32] head over to the sound of a card.com for slash MRG for the show notes and we'll have all the links

[00:36:38] to LinkedIn website and today's discussion, the key points in highlights on the wisdom

[00:36:43] wisdom keys. And then social media, LinkedIn, you know, will leave all that links

[00:36:49] on YouTube or on the podcast platforms where you guys can click and check it all out. I'm

[00:36:54] really thankful for coming on the show and you know, sharing some light in terms of what's

[00:36:58] happening on the content on the social economic entrepreneurship kind of level.

[00:37:04] When you appreciate it. Thanks, Adrian. Pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, I'm glad.

[00:37:08] Alright, we'll see you guys in the next one. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye bye.