Boost to Student Creativity with Commissioning of UG Innovation Enclave and Makerspace
The University of Ghana in collaboration with Imperial College London and the Kosmos Innovation Centre has commissioned an ultramodern Innovation Enclave. This is a cutting-edge facility designed with a makerspace to empower students, researchers and entrepreneurs to transform ideas into impactful solutions addressing Africa's pressing challenges.
The facility, located near the School of Engineering Sciences, is equipped with advanced tools for electronics, woodworking, textiles, and digital fabrication, serves as a launchpad for prototyping, product development and interdisciplinary collaboration. It provides a training room, a workshop area, an art studio, an eatery and washrooms.
At the commissioning ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, emphasised the power of sustained partnerships, noting the eight-year collaboration with Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC) that resulted in this achievement. She highlighted the untapped potential of UG students, citing recent successes such as the Debate Team's Pan-African championship win and engineering students' global food packaging victory.
Prof. Amfo responded to a call from KIC's Executive Director, Benjamin Gyan Kesse, for flexible academic pathways to support student entrepreneurs, assuring that discussions would explore modular programmes to balance studies and business ventures.
Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Development, Prof. Felix Ankomah Asante praised his predecessors and the current team at the Research and Innovation Directorate for building a connected network leading to a successful completion of the enclave. He disclosed that KIC contributed over $200,000 in equipment and in-kind support, with additional backing from Imperial College London, Innovate Labs and others.
He cautioned students to let the space “become a place for ideas and solutions.’’
“This enclave is not for us to keep, it is ours to give to the students who have the solutions to plastic waste, a researcher developing a new agricultural tool, to the artist envisioning a new form of expression” Prof. Asante reiterated.
The Director of Research and Innovation Directorate, Prof. David Dodoo-Arhin noted that “This occasion is really not about opening a facility but rather, launching a movement to connect ideas, to impact, to train innovators, enterprises that embrace Ghana’s and Africa’s most pressing challenges.’’
Prof. Dodoo-Arhin also acknowledged the works of the past and present Pro Vice-Chancellors, for their unique leadership and their immense contribution in championing this initiative.
Executive Director for Kosmos Innovation Centre, Benjamin Gyan Kesse highlighted successes, including UG alumni-led businesses like Agro Empire, which transform products from snail farming into cosmetics and fertilizers and noted that supported ventures have raised nearly $30 million in external funding.
The SRC President, Richmond Ofori Larbi expressed profound gratitude to university management and partners for supporting a project that will help create limitless opportunities and development for young entrepreneurs.
This initiative aligns directly with the University of Ghana's Strategic Plan (2024-2029), advancing priorities such as Transformative Student Experience through holistic development and practical skills, Impactful Research by accelerating innovation and knowledge application, Engagement and Partnerships via sustained collaborations, and Sustainable Resource Mobilisation by designing the space to be self-sustaining while contributing to community and national development.
The Makerspace is now open, inviting collaboration from industry, alumni and the wider community to drive creativity, entrepreneurship and solutions for Ghana's future.
