The CUCG, represented by “Prison Made”, a student social enterprise group working with Sunyani Central Prisoners on the manufacture of sandals was crowned the ultimate winner of the 2018 Duapa Challenge competition held at the British Council on February 20, 2018. The Panel of Expert Judges were: Comfort Ocran (CEO, Legacy & Legacy), Jesse Agyepong (CEO, Afiba Consulting) and Amma Lartey (CEO, SE Ghana ).
 
The Duapa Challenge is a social innovation support competition providing seed capital of Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS10,000.00) and business support for early stage viable social enterprise. The programme is part of British Council’s contribution to the social enterprise ecosystem, and seeks to promote economic growth, private sector development and youth employment through enterprise development. The overall goal of the competition is to identify and support brilliant social enterprises who are in operation and growing.
 
The objectives of the 2018 Duapa Challenge Competition were to:

• identify and support idea and growth stage social enterprises from tertiary institutions in Ghana.
• generate and support student entrepreneurship with a focus on social entrepreneurship.
• bring together idea and growth stage social entrepreneurs to connect, learn and develop synergies.
• provide seed capital and support to the winning social enterprise from ideation to prototype/market entry phase.
• create general awareness about social enterprises in Ghana.

 
Core Areas
The 2018 edition of the Duapa Challenge drew social entrepreneurs in tertiary institutions from the following sectors:

• Social focused Fintech
• Green & Renewable Energy
• Agriculture
• Ethical Design & Manufacturing
• Healthcare
• Education

 
Participating Tertiary Institutions
In the 2018 edition dubbed “The Campus Duel”, the competition focused on student social enterprises in the following 10 Ghanaian tertiary institutions:

1. University of Ghana (UG)
2. Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA)
3. Ashesi University (AU)
4. University for Professional Studies of Accra (UPSA)
5. Knutsford University College (KUC)
6. Lancaster University (LU)
7. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
8. Central University (CU)
9. University of Cape Coast (UCC)
10. Catholic University College of Ghana (CUCG)

 
Each of these institutions had a team each of three or less students representing them in each stage of the competition. The teams developed and pitched their business ideas before live audience and a panel of expert judges. The final competition made up of the following five universities was held at the British Council on February 20, 2018:

• UG
• GIMPA
• AU
• KNUST
• CUCG

The student social enterprise group from CUCG (‘Prison Made’ won the 2018 Duapa Challenge competition with seed money of Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS10,000.00)