The week-long Ghana Technology and Innovation Week (GTIW) was launched in Accra on Friday, April 22.

The festival targeted at recognizing, acknowledging and promoting excellence in mainstream technology solutions and innovation space was outdoored in the presence of key players, stakeholders, corporate entities and the media.

The main event is scheduled for June 23rd to 25th.

The keenly contested 28-list categories will recognize Tech leaders, Tech enthusiasts, Tech influencers, Tech professionals, Tech entrepreneurs, Tech Institutions, Innovators and Corporate organizations.

The Executive Director of the Center for Human Security and Peace, Adib Saani who doubles as the Chairman of the Board of Jury believes the event will improve productivity amongst the youth in the face of massive unemployment while it solves a myriad of problems affecting the country.

“Tech gives us endless opportunities to aspire to greater heights. This event is meant to encourage tech, promote conversations, not just reward but solve loads of socio-economic issues we’ve had to contend with as a country,” Mr. Saani said.

“We need to make our youth population productive especially in the wake of massive unemployment with a lot of young people leaving school and not having anything to do,” he added.

He also hailed the Vice President’s efforts to digitalize the economy by introducing a system whose foundations are tech-driven.

“The Vice Presidents effort to digitalize the economy has been progressive. I mean, we have seen recently at an event in the Central Region that the Vice President launched an E-travel card,” he said.

He continued: “This means that before a government functionary travels out of the country, all information will be loaded onto the card. It ensures accountability so people won’t travel and not account for the money they have spent.

“For years, we have also seen a lot of reforms in the public sector especially with the introduction of the Ghana Integrated Financial Information Management System (GIFIMS) which is an IT based accounting system that tracks all government expenditure even at the very decentralized level.
This promoted accountability, promotes democracy and ensure people don’t engage in acts that’s inimical to the state. As far as I am concerned, it’s been good but there is still a lot to be done moving forward,” he concluded.

Below is the list of unveiled categories:

 Digital Entertainer of the year
 Digital Entertainment platform of the year
 Digital Media Company of the year
 Tech CXO of the year
 Health Care Platform of the year
 Most Innovative Research Lab Company of the year
 Tech and Innovation Lab/Hub of the year
 Consumer Technology Retail Company of the year
 Digital Product of the year
 Automobile Company of the year
 Logistics Tech Company of the year
 Tech Deployment of the year – Extraction sector
 Tech Deployment of the year – Manufacturing sector
 IOT Deploying of the year
 Educational Technology Company of the year
 Energy Solutions Innovator of the year
 Water Processing Company of the year
 Green Tech Company of the year
 Telecommunications Company of the year
 E-commerce Platform of the year
 Woman of Excellence in Tech
 AI Innovation of the year
 Tech Security Company of the year
 Smart Banking Tech Solution of the year
 Business Process Automation System of the year
 Tech Champion of the year
 Hall of Fame awards