Ghanaian Entrepreneurs Taking Over Toronto!

[00:00:02]Welcome guys. Welcome guys. Good afternoon, good morning wherever you are watching.

[00:00:08]We continue today for Yes. We are at D Square manager but she's the event manager director. All of these things happening.

[00:00:26]And I think it's really important to give flowers and give love on top of my full job and make some our imagination.

[00:00:52]It's not clear of course.

[00:01:12]Huge thanks to my team as well.

[00:01:16]Shout out to AC organizing award stars and everything also. I also say thank you so much.

[00:01:29]Thank you. I feel like there's one more person I'm missing.

[00:01:32]>> You thank you. Sure. Thanks guys.

[00:01:37]Big up here as well too. And now we're here. We're here to give someone off the evil on this wall too. Not just on the mic.

[00:01:46]>> We're here. We're here. We're here.

[00:01:54]Listen. If you have a towel, your towel, your towel, wave your towel. Wave your towel. I want everybody who doesn't have a towel to go and get a towel. Wave your towel. Wave your towel. Wave your towel.

[00:02:04]Wave your towel. We have the pleasure of welcoming Pops Ghana and his team over there on this amazing truck for this activation. And you know, Pops Ghana was the designer who created and designed the black the black stars kit for this 2026 World Cup.

[00:02:22]>> So in addition to that, he put together this incredible towel that we're selling here, limited edition at the event. So please go and get your towel.

[00:02:29]>> I think you can speak there. Is he coming on stage? No.

[00:02:34]to Kyle.

[00:02:36]>> They're here. Oh, they're they're they're taking pictures and videos.

[00:02:39]There we go. Let's go. Let's go.

[00:02:40]>> Come and bring up Derek, too. Derek, bra.

[00:02:44]>> I see them here coming on stage.

[00:02:47]>> Give them a round of applause as they make their way. As they make their way.

[00:02:50]As they make their way.

[00:02:57]>> Wow.

[00:02:58]Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

[00:03:01]First and foremost, for every single person that is here, I need you guys to give yourself a round of applause for being here.

[00:03:12]>> Let's try that again. LET'S TRY IT AGAIN.

[00:03:14]>> I DON'T THINK YOU GUYS heard him. He said, "Don't get him." He said, "Give yourselves a round of >> applause." Give yourselves a round of applause. You guys made it. You guys woke up today. It means you guys are chosen. Every single person here is chosen. You guys are destined. You guys are blessed. We are all witnessing history. This has never happened before.

[00:03:37]Like Toronto is an infant in culture and arts and entertainment. So the fact that this is going on, this is going to live for generations. This is a huge blessing. You want to know what's so crazy about this? I'm not even FROM GHANA.

[00:03:54]I'M Nigerian and I'm rooting for Ghana.

[00:03:57]I'm rooting for allegiance. I'm rooting for connection >> because I am a servant. I'm here to service and I'm super thankful that Jeff Papa Ghana, the dandada of Ghana was able to truly give me this opportunity and privilege to collab on this World Cup jersey towel. And I'm going to pass it off really quickly to Jeff. You know, he usually, you know, he usually doesn't, you know, he doesn't talk, but he's going to talk for y'all because every single individual here is blessed.

[00:04:36]>> Oh, I wasn't expecting this. Let me just rectify one thing. I didn't design the cope web jersey, the one that you see right now. I designed that one and that's literally inspired by all the Adinkra symbols representing all Ghanaians across the world and all the different tribes. It's representing the black star cuz we all are black stars.

[00:04:56]And yeah, Hikaya brought me here and he told me about this beautiful activation out here in the Sofa Square. This name is epic. Sanka square. Can you imagine?

[00:05:07]Out here in the middle of Toronto downtown. You people are blessed.

[00:05:10]Literally, I live in a city called Amsterdam. We don't have a Sankova Square there. I can tell you that. So, please support the brother here. Buy a power and let's vote for Ghana. Let's root for all the African countries.

[00:05:24]>> Let's roo for all the diaspora in Toronto.

[00:05:27]>> This city is amazing. Every time I come here, I'm like, yo, >> epic. So, please, people, keep the energy. Stay shining. And God bless you all. Amen.

[00:05:35]>> God bless you. God bless you. Give him a round of applause one more time, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate you guys. And listen, this is the energy now. Give a round of applause. Keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it going.

[00:05:46]Keep it going. Ghana for your GHANA FOR YOUR CHROMA.

[00:05:52]WAVE YOUR GHANA FLAG HIGH. Wave your towel high. And if you don't have one, it's now time to get one. It's a beautiful time to get a photo op, get a picture, and let everybody know to spread the awareness. With that being fed though, >> my brother, it's time to call on my brother from another mother, another Nigerian brother who wish Ghanaian. I'm telling you, he told me this personally.

[00:06:13]He said, "Eborn, I'm Nigerian, but I wish I was from Ghana." Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the one and only Fabi Lass.

[00:06:23]Anything you do, I can do it.

[00:06:28]>> And listen, if he if he says anything he doesn't say, cut the mic. All right. All right, ladies and gentlemen. HOW'S EVERYONE FEELING?

[00:06:36]>> If you're feeling good, say, "I'm feeling good." Oh.

[00:06:40]Say, "I'm feeling good." Oh.

[00:06:43]Yes. Yes. Yes. So, I go by the name of Feb. Fine boy. No pimples, just dimples.

[00:06:49]And we are now here because for those of you that were here earlier, I was explaining that the Black Innovation Zone is giving out a FIFA package to some young entrepreneurs. So, make some noise. If you're an entrepreneur, you support entrepreneurs one time, make some noise. Yes. The entrepreneurship life isn't easy, but guess what? being part of this experience being here in Toronto. We want to make sure that we show love to our entrepreneurs. So, everyone in the audience, you are going to decide who is going to win this pitch competition right now. Everyone is going to get exactly 1 minute to pitch their business idea. All right. So, the three finalists are, and as I call you guys up, I want you to come on to the stage.

[00:07:42]Can we please get Barry Gibbs from team finance and real estate? Please give a big round of applause for Barry Gibbs.

[00:07:50]Yes, I like the green black innovation zone. All right. Can we also give a big round of applause for Faith Ola from Coachly?

[00:08:03]Yes. Yes.

[00:08:05]And last but not least, please give a big round of applause for Taan Carter from InSync AI.

[00:08:14]You may also recognize him from Big Brother because he was the one winner.

[00:08:18]Yes, you know we have celebrity guys.

[00:08:21]All right. So, what's going to happen?

[00:08:24]Each of you are going to get exactly one minute to pitch to the audience your business idea.

[00:08:32]After the minute is done, I will take the mic away from you. Very ruthless.

[00:08:37]You know, we Africans. We just take mic.

[00:08:39]There's no Canadian niceness yet. All right.

[00:08:43]After all three of you pitch, the audience is going to decide who wins based off of their applause and their loudness. All right. So, with that being said, audience, are you ready?

[00:08:58]>> THAT DIDN'T SOUND CONVINCING. AUDIENCE, ARE YOU READY?

[00:09:03]THAT'S WHAT I like to hear. Barry, come up to the front. You will be our first.

[00:09:10]You have your own microphone.

[00:09:13]>> Yes. Sponsored by the Nigerians.

[00:09:16]Just kidding. All right, we have a timer. Do we have our timer person? All right. Shout out to Noel.

[00:09:24]All right, your time starts. Audience, let's count down. 5 4 >> 3 2 1 >> and go.

[00:09:36]>> Business owners, we feel your pain. We truly feel your pain. We know that you are the firefighter within your business. You're doing everything. Sales, marketing, operations, payroll, taxes, and wonder if you get the time to even know are you making money or not.

[00:09:58]My name is Barry Gibbs and I've been in financing for over 20 years. And so I've been frontline with business owners like yourself and knowing that doing all these different hats, it's hard to keep your books in order. So what I've done is I put together a portal in order to deal with real people, real technology to hold your hands and bring you forward. So, let's get your books right and let's get that money. Let's go.

[00:10:33]>> Good time and right on time. Please give him a round of applause.

[00:10:40]>> All right.

[00:10:42]>> Faith, your name is a very strong name.

[00:10:46]Faith. Do you have faith in yourself?

[00:10:49]>> I do.

[00:10:49]>> I have faith.

[00:10:50]>> I have faith in everyone.

[00:10:52]>> All right. Faith from Country Fly. Are you ready audience? 5 4 >> 3 2 1 >> The FIFA World Cup has brought us all together here, including the Ghanaian team that is going to play on Wednesday.

[00:11:09]But behind that team is another team doing all the coordination. They are stressing about the flights, the hotels, the bookings, the payments, and all of that. Imagine you are one of those on that team. How would you feel? It's stressful. It's hectic. It's it's exhausting. Group travel coordination is exhausting. And I know this because I'm a licensed travel adviser with over 6 years of experience. I've planned over a thousand group trips. And I realized that the problem with group travel coordination is not the travel, but the coordination. That's why I built Cotripoli. Kotley is an AI platform that simplifies the process of group travel coordination using AI all in one place.

[00:11:48]We've launched 4 months ago and we've made over a 100,000 in revenue. We have over 590 um seven people on the platform and seven organizational um um contracts. Um FIFA connects the world together. Cotriply connects us together one group trip at a time AT A TIME.

[00:12:09]GOOD JOB. Just at the last second. Can you imagine? All right. Hey, these pictures are good. But last but certainly not least, Taishan, are you ready?

[00:12:22]Are you ready?

[00:12:24]>> Are you sure?

[00:12:25]>> All right, >> audience. Let's count down. Five 4 3 2 1 >> chalet.

[00:12:37]>> Raise your hand if you have big dreams and goals.

[00:12:42]>> Raise your hand again if people didn't believe in you.

[00:12:47]>> Raise your hand again if at times you didn't believe in yourself.

[00:12:52]My name is Deshawn and I'm a coach and I developed something exactly for that.

[00:12:56]The tool is called InSync AI. It's a platform that delivers you meditations and affirmations in your own voice. I grew up black in Canada and as you know growing up here, people tell you're not enough and they don't believe in you and getting on stage and taking the last shot. All those things can be difficult.

[00:13:14]But you clone your voice one time on this app and every day it'll tell you, "I'm enough. I am good enough and deliver you personalized meditations.

[00:13:23]Say, I am enough.

[00:13:25]>> I am enough.

[00:13:26]>> Imagine hearing that every day while you're getting ready for work in your own voice. Get in sync and download in sync AI. Thank you everybody.

[00:13:36]>> Right on time. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE GIVE IT UP FOR ALL THREE FINALISTS.

[00:13:43]>> All right. I'm so happy I don't have to do this part. This is you. I How do you feel about those pisses, man? This was serious.

[00:13:50]>> Do you know I I saw your face when you were looking at the pictures. It was like I was getting goosebumps.

[00:13:55]>> The the way my hair is standing up on my arms. It's like >> this this this is this is serious. Can we get you guys standing in the line please in the order you were come on this side first. But like come on up.

[00:14:06]Come on up. Like the World Cup there can only be one winner. There can only be one winner and some people are losers is but it's okay because in life there's no losses. There's only lessons.

[00:14:18]and what you get. You can never have enough lessons. All right? So, I want everybody to remember that in life there's no losses. There's only lessons.

[00:14:26]And lessons only make you better. So, big shout out to each and every one of you for standing on this stage cuz it takes a lot of guts to share your dream, share your motivation with people. And now, it is your job to choose who will win this package. All right. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to each contestant and we're going to do based off of the round of applause.

[00:14:50]That's how we're going to determine who is the winner. As you can see, the helicopters are reporting live from CTV.

[00:14:58]>> I love it.

[00:14:59]>> Hello. How's it going everybody? We are about to choose the winner. Helicopter.

[00:15:04]ALL RIGHT. CONTESTANT NUMBER ONE, MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:15:10]>> All right. Very good. Applause. THAT'S VERY GOOD. CONTESTANT NUMBER TWO, MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:15:19]>> That one has some bass inside of it. ADD SOME BASS. CONTESTANT NUMBER THREE, MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:15:28]OKAY.

[00:15:30]OKAY. I think I think you have my top two. I think we have our top two. Yeah.

[00:15:35]So, right now we have our top two here.

[00:15:37]So, wait. Hold on. Please give our contestant some noise because he did a very good job as well, you know.

[00:15:44]>> And don't worry, you can go and meet Chris. Chris will see you on the side.

[00:15:48]All right, so we have our final two finalist. All right, audience, you are going to determine who will win tonight.

[00:15:57]>> All right, so we need everyone engaged.

[00:15:59]Let's get everyone to breathe in.

[00:16:01]>> Okay, >> breathe out. Breathe out.

[00:16:06]>> Let's do it one more time. Breathe in.

[00:16:10]Breathe out. By doing this exercise, you will show the strength of your scream for who you choose today. All right.

[00:16:19]If you think contestant number two IS THE WINNER, MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:16:31]>> Very long scream, very long chant and emotions.

[00:16:38]WOW.

[00:16:39]>> IF YOU THINK CONTESTANT NUMBER THREE IS A WINNER TO MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:16:48]>> He's shaking the barricades. He's shaking. He's shaking the barricades.

[00:16:53]It's very close. I think we need to do it one more time. Audience, please. This will be the last time I need. Please participate. These both of their ideas and their dreams rely on you. All right.

[00:17:08]CONTESTANT NUMBER TWO, MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:17:16]ALL RIGHT.

[00:17:18]CONTESTANT NUMBER THREE, MAKE SOME NOISE.

[00:17:25]>> I have to go collab. I have to go talk to my judges.

[00:17:29]>> All right.

[00:17:33]So the loud atmosphere is sorry microphone.

[00:17:38]I didn't realize good. I thought that was All right, the judges have now come to a decision. But in order for me to announce, I need a drum roll from the audience. Please pat on your chest, pat on your legs, stomp your feet. Stomp it.

[00:18:18]Stomp it. Stomp it. Stomp it. Stomp it.

[00:18:23]Stomp feet. See the way Africans can make bits of everything. All right, the winner of this year's Black Innovation Zone pitch competition live in Toronto during the FIFA weekend and week and months is >> contest number two.

[00:18:47]You are the winner of the people prize and you are going to be enjoying a very very nice prize. But you know we got to give a big congratulations to Tashan. You did an amazing job too. Please give it up for contestant number three. Make sure you check out InSync AI is going to do amazing things as well. Big shout out to the entire team. Big shout out to Noella Black Innovation Zone. Chris, is there any last words you would like to say?

[00:19:16]Sanca, how you doing?

[00:19:19]>> All right. Like I said earlier, you might have missed it. My name is Chris Thompson. I'm the founder of of the Federation of Black Canadians, one of the founders of the Black Innovation Zone. We're here to support all the entrepreneurs. So, this is just a glimpse of what we do. Basically, we're a a coalition of black le organizations that have come together. We support entrepreneurs across Canada, helping them build their business, idea, innovation. I want everybody to visit the tents, the black tents with the black innovation zone. We have free giveaways for you all, but this is just us coming together to support entrepreneurs, to give them a a a chance to be on stage in front of you to say the say what their business is and get them support. So, I'm Jamaican. I'm here supporting the Ghanaian, but I am a Jamaican. So, I want to say you're African. I'm African today. I'm more Jamaican. African. Yeah. But yeah, so when I say Sopa, are you here? I WANT TO HEAR YEAH. YEAH. SO, SEN KOPA, ARE YOU HERE?

[00:20:09]>> ONE MORE TIME. SEN KOOPA, ARE YOU HERE?

[00:20:11]>> ALL RIGHT. SO, I WANT EVERYBODY TO SUPPORT ALL THE ENTREPRENEURS IN the room on the stage and go visit our booth. Thank you for coming out. These two are going to win. They're going to win an incredible gift, but we have so much more to offer. I want to make sure that all the founders are here. The other um founders of the biz zone is Nobellum. I think they're in the room.

[00:20:28]Noellum, let me hear you. And in Black Founders Network, we face a whole bunch of groups. We're here across Canada.

[00:20:34]We're here to invest support. So, I want you to get all your supports up, keep connected, and you know, continue to support. Most support. Let's support the Black Stars. All right.

[00:20:43]>> The Black Stars.

[00:20:45]>> Big shout out. All right. So, right now we're going to take a quick picture with the entire group. You guys coming up.

[00:20:50]You guys can feel free. Take out your iPhones, your blueberries, Blackberries, whatever you want to call it. Blueberry.

[00:20:56]Android, you know, blueberry, a