Noni Hub, an innovation hub and MTN Ayoba MoMo Accelerator Award winner, in partnership with Mobile Telephone Network (MTN), has held a meet-up for startups to leverage MTN digital business promotion platforms to grow their startup ventures in the Upper West Region.
The meet-up brought together about 30 startups, including aspiring entrepreneurs, and experts from the telecoms giant under the theme, “Leveraging Digital Platforms for Business Growth” over the weekend.
“In the spirit of progress and growth, we will work together to identify and support the region’s dynamic start-up ecosystem.
“This is your opportunity to network with industry experts, gain valuable insights, and learn how digital platforms can propel your company to new heights,” it posted on its social media handles ahead of the event.
Addressing the gathering of young entrepreneurs, the Head of Digital Platforms and Digital Marketing of MTN, Winnie Dzidonu said MTN came to the realization that startups were confronted with technology constraints which led to their undergrowth and has decided to become a “platform player” to support their growth.
“What that means is that we want to be the foundation on which you build your companies so that you can grow and through your growth, we will have some relevance in the world,” she said.
She explained that MTN looked forward to becoming the largest and most valuable platform in Africa supporting startups and business ventures to grow their brands and enhance their productivity.
She noted that MTN was approaching this ambition in different but coordinated ways, each with targeted outcomes to be achieved by 2025.
Miss Dzidonu said MTN was presently building four growth platforms simultaneously as part of the Ambition 2025 strategy including Ayoba, a digital solution platform; Chenosis, an API marketing platform; Mobile Advertising, an all-phone-type supported advertising platform; and MoMo, Mobile Money transaction platform.
She explained that the mobile advertising platform allows all MTN customers irrespective of the kind of phone they used, smart or “yam”, to be able to advertise their products.
“We have mobile advertising which is a bit different from new advertising on [social media] because [those platforms] only know people with smart phone. But as MTN, we know everybody, even if you have a “yam” phone, we know you.
So you can send a message to somebody who has a yam phone – they don’t have a smart phone – about your products and services and how to find you by using our services for mobile advertising,” she said.
Mr Sumaila Chakurah, the Chief Executive Officer of Noni Hub, said the partnership with MTN sought to harness and groom young entrepreneurs and their budding talents to develop into successful, fully-fledged entrepreneurs and businesses in the region.
He urged the young entrepreneurs to leverage the Developers Network, a bi-weekly learning and sharing forum of experienced and amateur web developers, that was recently rolled out by the Noni Hub to develop their skills in the use of digital platforms.
He told the young entrepreneurs that his outfit would be following up on MTN to ensure delivery of the actionable items that were discussed during the meet-up.
“We will be following up on the key action points: the request for affordable data, the exemptions for advertising fees, and more opportunities to learn on how to turn their apps into micro apps and then turn them unto the Ayoba platform,” Mr Chakurah said.
He expressed hopefulness for further collaborations with MTN to support startups in the Upper West Region to help bridge the income inequality gap that affected startups in the region.
“We also want see whether it is possible to create MTN Entrepreneurship Fund for young people in Upper West,” he hinted.
