In the Ashanti Kingdom, which comprised about half of modern Ghana, traditional records say that it was the queen mother who was responsible for introducing new technologies such as the iron hoe and the oil lamp. So when the newly formed Technology Consulting Center (TCC) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, was looking for a logo in 1972, it was based on a traditional design, printed on cloth by the Adinkra artisans of the Ntonso village and called ‘ohemaa nkyinkyin’ or the queen mother does not sit around with nothing to do. The emblem not only has a name but also a message: ‘esese me danedane me ho na meye neama pii, I must change and play many roles’. Engineering, like other professions, has traditionally been considered the preserve of men, so it is pleasing to note that in Ghana, past and present, women have been given due credit for their participation in technical innovation.

An activity traditionally associated with women is jam making, and one of Ghana’s earliest and most successful female industrial entrepreneurs was a jam maker, Esther Ocloo, who had to acquire a great deal of technical knowledge to set up her large modern plant. of food processing, Nkulenu. Industries, in Medina, near Accra. Esther Ocloo was elected the first president of the Ghana Manufacturers Association when it was founded in 1958 (as the Federation of Ghana Industries) and was re-elected for a second term from 1978 to 1980. Her enormous contribution to grassroots industrialization in Ghana she was recognized by the TCC and awarded an honorary DSc by KNUST at their Silver Jubilee congregation for conferring degrees in 1976. It would be one of the first of many national and international honors conferred on her over the next quarter century.

Shortly after Dr. Ocloo’s death in 2002, her niece, Dr. Peggy Oti-Boateng, was appointed director of the TCC. Peggy joined the TCC in 1982 for her year of National Service and stayed on to promote women’s projects in food processing and beekeeping. After a few years of absence, including studying for a Ph. Grassroots industrial development continued to the end. twenty first century.

Cecilia Apawu graduated from KNUST in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in mining and mineral engineering. For her final year thesis, Cecilia chose to work with TCC’s Suame Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit (ITTU) on a study of the technology of Suame Magazine’s aluminum smelting machines, the largest informal industrial areas in Ghana. . The work she did was a good example of how the scientific method can be applied to understand and eventually improve an established grassroots industry. Later, after joining the FREE project in Tema, near Accra, Cecilia was able to repeat her study with the artisans in Ashiaman and set up a training program at Tema ITTU to help them improve the quality of their products.

In the early 1980s, at ITTU Suame, no young women showed up for internships at any of the engineering workshops. This was probably due to the strong masculine tradition in the Magazine craft. However, when the ITTU arrived in Tamale, and then Tema, it found no such barriers to hiring women and an increasing number of young women applied for apprenticeships. The process was facilitated by the presence of female engineers and technicians who no doubt encouraged their sisters to follow them in engineering. By the turn of the century, several former ITTU apprentices from Tamale and Tema were running their own small engineering workshops equipped with modern machine tools.

One of Tema ITTU’s most successful projects was the introduction of the locally manufactured metal turning lathe. This development was fueled by the availability of aluminum sheets produced in Tema by Aluworks Ltd. Using lathes made in Tema by Kofi Asiamah’s Redeemer workshop and others, entrepreneurs produced large numbers of domestic pots and pans that were sold at competitive prices in local markets. Within 5 years, the industry grew to include over a hundred growers employing some 5,000 workers. Many of the pioneering women entrepreneurs were women who previously sold imported products of a similar nature. Centuries may have passed since the Ashanti queen mother saw the benefits of the oil lamp, but today Ghanaian women are still quick to spot opportunities to benefit from new industrial developments.