Fiifi Baidoo, co-founder and community manager of Accra’s latest incubator and co-working environment, iSpace, spoke to HumanIPO about why the office was set up and what it is hoping to achieve in the tech entrepreneur and startup ecosystem in Ghana.
HumanIPO: What does iSpace offer developers?
Baidoo: Developers get access to various benefits from the various partnerships we have with industry players. We provide a friendly environment for developers with an inspiring view overlooking the ocean all at a very reasonable membership rate.
We provide the space and resources for the average technology entrepreneur and the expectation for them to start their business much faster.
We will also be running world class hands on programmes for techpreneurs on building their ideas, leveraging on their environment, building their brands and taking to market their products.
The developer gets access to investment opportunities, business support, social development programmes and mentorship programmes. In the next few months we will be rolling out training programmes aimed at the entrepreneur who wants to learn how code, prototyping and commercialising their product.
When did iSpace commence operations?
We started building the idea of iSpace from September 2011. We used most of the time in 2012 to polish and make our proposal friendly and appealing to potential funders.
We had our soft launch on 28th of June this year after some few weeks of approval from funders.
Since it was launched, how has the experience been?
We are just a month and some few hours old so far and the experience has been great. We have all our team spaces filled and a lot of people making enquiries about the space about our coworking space.
There’s been a lot of interest in what we are doing here at iSpace. We have had more than four events here with a lot more booked in August and September.
Our first event was with BlackBerry, they trained a couple of developers on the BlackBerry 10 platform followed by other events by Google, Blogging Ghana and collaborations with some of our partners.
Our most recent event was held this past Saturday (July 27) with 30 JHS kids. The programme is a mentorship programme aimed at introducing technology and entrepreneurship to the young and underprivileged children.
What are the projects currently at the incubation phase at iSpace?
We currently have more than eight projects and companies making their way to iSpace to grow from here.
We are currently not incubating any. Some of these projects who have moved here are quite new though.
We however will be incubating a few more before the quarter ends from the challenges and hackathons we have planned ahead in the coming weeks.
