Vokacom, a wholly-owned Ghanaian Information Technology (IT) company, has won this year’s World Global SME Award for Best Business Model.
At the 2019 edition of the globally competitive ITU Telecom World Awards, organised by the International Telecom Union in Budapest Hungary last week, Vokacom, the IT service company that designed Ghana’s Digital Property Addressing System, also received special recognition for ‘Excellence in Providing and Promoting innovative ICT solutions with social Impact’.
Some 175 global SME technology companies from over 35 countries competed at this major United Nations award event. The ITU Telecom World Awards recognise the most innovative, promising SMEs and initiatives using ICTs for social impact, and offer global recognition on an international stage.
The International Telecommunication Union is the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). Its global membership includes 193 Member States as well as some 900 companies, international and regional organizations.
Commenting on the honour, Nana Osei Afrifa, Group Chief Executive of Vokacom, told the media: “This recognition by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is a good demonstration of the strides we are making in the digital inclusion agenda on the African continent in achieving the 2030 Digital Transformation Agenda.
Richmond Kwame Frimpong, Managing Directorof AsaaseGPS Limited, a company within the Vokacom Group, hinted that the company was currently deploying the digital addressing solution across a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
“We are in the final stages of rolling out the solution in several African countries. Our goal is to make our universal addressing the new standard for our continent and beyond,” he said.
As a country member of the ITU, Ghana’s delegation to this year’s World Awards was led by the Honourable Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful. She congratulated the team for the global honours their awards bring to the government and people of Ghana.
Vokacom was established in 2004 and has nine subsidiary companies in Ghana and other African counties. It designed the AsaaseGPS as the world’s first official digital addressing system for countries and collaborated with the Ghana Post Company in its roll out as GhanaPostGPS.
AsaaseGPS generates unique code for every property or location in the country. It has a national address registry embedded in the system that enables individuals to validate their home and business addresses for easy direction and identification. The model has been described as revolutionary and is deployable countrywide to meet individual, corporate, municipal and national addressing needs.
At the 2018 edition of the Ghana Information, Technology and Telecom Awards held in Accra, Vokacom was adjudged the Software Company of Year. Its founder and Chief Executive, Nana Osei Afrifa, was also adjudged the Young ICT Entrepreneur of the Year in recognition of his cutting edge technology in the IT space.
A wholly Ghanaian firm formed in 2004, Vokacom has nine subsidiary companies in Ghana and other parts of Africa in the telecom value added services industry offering high-end public addressing, financial, real estate and agribusiness solutions.
