Designers Of An Adjustable Barbeque Grill Crowned As Winners Of The DTI Business Competition

Design and Technology Institute (DTI) has completed the final phase of its “Innovation Business Competition” and, it crowned AB Group as the winner.

AB Group began its journey with sixteen other teams in May, the first phase of the competition, and sailed through to the semi-finals. The group aced that as well when the numbers were shortlisted to ten. Today, they are the winners out of six equally innovative teams.

For its innovative product, the group designed an Adjustable Barbeque Grill to support local fish vendors. The team discovered during their research that the popular process fish vendors go through to produce a sizzling fish meal was through constant bending, regular checks of the fire, fanning, and on the extreme, getting burned. This is because they leverage the traditional barbeque grill. The process exposes these vendors to shoulder and waist pains and goes as far as threatening their respiratory system.

It is crucial for food vendors to adhere to COVID protocols in this era and one way to facilitate that is with the Adjustable Barbeque Grill.

Highlighting its features, the Adjustable Barbeque Grill is a movable device with a double-flipping turning mesh, adjustable fire unit, flame safety unit, and a charcoal grill that will assist fish vendors to sell in an efficient and risk-free manner.

Some importance of the device is:

• It decreases the number of times the vendor has to stand to monitor the fire. The fire unit can easily be adjusted to suit the need.
• It is risk-free. The vendor does not have to worry about been burned or been exposed to smoke particles.
• The double-flipping mesh can always be adjusted to prevent burning the fish.

As a product of an eco-friendly institute, AB Group will partner with Zaacoal, a green company that produces clean affordable briquettes. The partnership will ascertain that AB Group’s customers will have a constant supply of affordable, easy-to-use, and efficient briquettes.

The group also plans to commence its pilot in Accra and subsequently become a household name.

For their efforts, the team was awarded $7000 and three tickets to the United States.

The DTI competition forms part of a three-year Young Africa Works “Transforming youth TVET livelihoods for sustainable jobs’’ partnership between DTI and the Mastercard Foundation. The program will provide 40,000 direct and indirect work opportunities for young people in the country.

“Providing an ecosystem where young entrepreneurs are supported to acquire relevant skills, funding and market access will contribute significantly to catalyzing work opportunities for young Ghanaians,” said James McInytre, Ghana Lead for Education and Skills at the Mastercard Foundation.