Category: Events

OML Africa, organizers of the maiden Ghana eCommerce Awards have released the list of nominees for nearly 30 categories at this year’s historic industry event! This a strictly black-tie event to be attended by over 150 guests made up of top online business owners, Founders of eCommerce websites, techpreneurs, key government decision-makers, regulators, etc.

Over 100 individuals and organizations filed 200 nominations for the Ghana eCommerce Awards is an award scheme designed to recognize and celebrate excellence and innovation of various stakeholders and players in the burgeoning online retail industry. This important event takes place at the Alisa Hotel on 30th Nov 2018.

Online shopping platform, mallghana.com leads the pack in terms of the number of nominations for the award categories with 11 nominations, followed by online food ordering platform, pizarea.com and rosefabricsgh.com, a leading online fabric store with 8 nominations each. Continental online commerce and marketplace giant, Jumia Group; leading African fashion marketplace, Ahwenepa.com and online retail shop, Africakart.com all have 7 nominations each.

Other popular nominees include Tonaton, Zoobashop, Melcomonline, Aramex, DHL, Electromart, Mazzuma, AlexPay, Zeepay, Flutterwave, SynCommerce, MarketExpress, ZongoMart, Skynet Express and other household names in Ghana’s online retail space vying for the bragging rights in a healthy “who-is-who” contest.

Some prestigious award categories include “Best Online Retailer of the Year’;” Best Male and Female eCommerce Entrepreneurs of the Year”; “Best e-Government Experience of the Year”; “ Best Multi-Channel Retailer of the Year”; “Best eCommerce Innovation in Payments”; “Best eCommerce Delivery Company of the Year” and many more.

Nominations were submitted online either directly from a company, from an involved individual, or from a third party. Winners will be subjected to a 60% strict selection criteria by a judging panel made up of industry experts and regulators plus a 40% public vote via text. Each winner will be expected to accept their award on stage at the awards ceremony on 30 November 2018.

There will also be Special Recognition Awards bestowed on some deserving individuals and organizations who have played pioneering roles and contributed immensely to the development of eCommerce in Ghana.

A spokesperson of the organizers said,” We are highly elated by the number of nominations we received and had to extend the deadline due to popular demand. We really look forward to an exciting night as we reward innovation and excellence of players in the eCommerce, online retail and payments space in an amazing atmosphere of healthy competition mixed with fun, food and entertainment!”

For the full list of nominees, please visit http://ghanaecommerceawards.com/public-vote.php or check here.

Vote for your favourite nominees to win by texting to 1903 on all mobile networks (Charges of GHS 0.50 apply). This is 40% of the total verdict! Public voting is for eg. Vote GEA (Best Online Retailer)BOR “your choice”) to 1903.

BEST MALE ECOMMERCE ENTREPRENEUR

• Massimiliano Spalazzi – Jumia
• Zubair Riaz – Tonaton
• Alex Adjei Bram – Hubtel
• Nana Opoku Agyemang-Prempeh – Asoriba
• Abraham Omani Quaye-Farmart
• Kofi Genfi & Nii Osae Osae Dade – Mazzuma

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has organised a hackathon competition to develop solutions that employ child-centred approach towards finding solutions to problems around Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

A hackathon is a design sprint-like event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers, project managers, and others, often including subject-matter-experts, collaborate intensively on software projects.

The initiative dubbed: ‘UNICEF Hackathon’, which is being run concurrently in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale; provides a platform for young people with any technical skills like website creation, graphic design, engineering and others, to create solutions using technology.

It highlights on SDG 3 (Health and Welbeing), SDG 4 (Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 6 (Water and Sanitation), SDG 8 (Descent work and Economic Growth), SDG 10 (Reduce inequalities) and SDG 13 (Climate Change).

According to UNICEF, by 2030 there would be two billion young women and men seeking opportunities for a bright future throughout the world.

The UN agency believes that with education, skills and empowerment, these young people would help transform economies and nations; but a fast-changing global economy demands increasingly specialise skills at a time when many education systems are struggling.

Speaking at the event, Mrs Antoinette Gyan, Communication Officer in-charge of Brand and Youth Engagement at UNICEF Ghana, recounted that ‘Generation Unlimited’ (GU), was launched at the UN General Assembly in September, 2018.

She said GU was a global partnership that aims to ensure that every young person was in education, learning, getting skills and employed by 2030.

Mrs Gyan said UNICEF realised that young people had lots of potentials and they could transform nations and economies, but over the years the potentials of young people had not been tapped.

She said UNICEF was therefore, seeking partnerships with private sector, academia and all stakeholders to ensure they tap the potentials of these young people.

She said the winners of the hackathon would be featured in the upcoming African Youth SDG Summit slated for November 7th to 9th, to showcase their ideas on effectively delivering results for children.

Mrs Gyan said, she was hopeful that young people would come up with solutions that UNICEF technical team could work with to develop something that could transform the economy and the world.

“We also hope that we will find some innovative ideas from young people in Ghana, which they will pitch to a jury during the Youth SDGs Summit”, she added.

Dr Gordon Kwesi Adomdza, Founding-lead of Ashesi Design Lab, an innovation hub, described UNICEF Hackathon 2018 as a preparation towards the African Youth SDG Summit.

He said at Ashesi Design Lab their methodology was about design thinking, and therefore, helps students, faculty and staff working on projects by providing a project consulting role; helping them utilize design thinking for their research.

He said participants would be taking through a structured design thinking process, and were expected to have clarity on the SDGs they have chosen.

He said areas such as education and climate change were broad so there was a need for participants to move closer to specific areas of focus, adding that “we are also taking them through research and analysis that will help them explore the areas a lot more”.

Dr Adomdza, who is the facilitator of the event said, he was hopeful that participants would not only present interesting ideas but validated ones.

Mr Christian Bagoya, a participant said, he chose SDG 4, because he believed education was the basic for a society to develop, however, the education Africa needed had to go with the pace at which technology was affecting the masses.

He underscored the need to have a system of education that would inform people to think critically, particularly in the area of job creation.

The African Youth SDGs Summit is the largest gathering platform for youth from across the African continent and beyond to discuss and assess the status of implementation of continental commitments to the Global Goals but also sharing ideas, critiques, results and challenge national governments to deliver on their promise.