Although COVID-19 affected most businesses negatively, some businesses also used it as an opportunity to thrive through innovation. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ghana office has selected three start-ups as winners for its NINJA business plan competition, launched in 2020 in collaboration with the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) and the Accra Digital Centre (ADC).
Through the project NINJA, 168 applications were received in Ghana and 2,713 were received from all 19 target African countries. The three companies that emerged as winners are: FarmWallet, TranSoniCa, and Health Direct Global. All the winners will receive a maximum of $30,000 from JICA to support the implementation of their activities.
TranSoniCa
TranSoniCa is a company that seeks to introduce multiple purpose contactless payment system in Ghana. Their main products for the NINJA project are bus validation, Point of Sale (POS) and contactless cards.
Pitch Event — Grand Finale of NINJA 2020
On 26th February 2021, JICA and NIKKEI hosted a pitch event inviting top 10 winners from 19 NINJA target countries. From Ghana, TranSoniCa Company Limited was nominated as the finalist. After the vote cast, TranSoniCa emerged second and M-SCAN (Uganda) won first place. In addition, TranSoniCa won special awards from Rakuten Inc, the leading Japanese company in internet services, and will receive advisory support to enable them successfully execute their business plan.