The Woman behind Busy Internet-Estelle Sowah

By Isabella Gyau Orhin

It is a fine Monday morning, at the first floor of the Busy Internet Building at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Accra. A fair coloured woman with a low hair cut walks in, beaming with smiles as she enters.
She says hello to every one; workers, clients, and visitors. Wearing a popular Ghanaian white cloth from Ghana Textiles Prints (GTP); known in local Akan parlance as Akyekyedee akyi or the (back of a tortoise), sewn in a long dress form, her well-endowed African body curves draw the attention of everyone, both men and women.
Ah! Is she white or black? One first time visitor murmured to herself.

Well that is Estelle Akofio Sowah, the Managing Director of Busy Internet, the country’s biggest internet Café and business resource centre which celebrated its fifth year of existence in Ghana in November 2006.

Born some 34 years ago in Edinburgh Scotland, Estelle Sowah was six months old when she was brought to Ghana.“My father, a Ghanaian was studying in Scotland when he met my mother who is
from Scotland” she explains her Ghanaian and Scottish background.

In Ghana she was educated at the Ghana International School and pursued a Bachelors Degree in Economic sand Development in the United Kingdom. Six Months after completion Ms. Sowah returned to Ghana and landed a job with ProNet, a community based service delivery civil society organisation.

She later worked with La Palm Royal Beach Hotel before settling down with SIMNET, a South African ICT company working in Partnership with the Department of National Lotteries.
She joined Busy Internet when the company was about nine months old and the rest is the success story today. “I did not have much trouble getting the job,” she says.

“I joined Busy as the Program Manager and was offered the position of deputy and then Managing Director about 6 months after I joined,” she says.

Ms. Sowah who is married with two children, a boy and a girl is very proud of her unique features. Asked how she has been so successful heading Busy Internet, she mentions hard work, dedication, tact, diplomacy and veracity, focus and the fact that she is a woman as some of her driving forces.

“As a woman a lot of people expect you to fail and as such not much impediments are put in your way,” she says.
Being a woman to her is a talent. “You can use it to your advantage; sometimes the men get confuse with your beauty and you can get away with a lot of things,” she says with smiles.

“Open 24hours a day, 365 days a year, Busy Internet is a place where people come for different reasons,” says a recent World Bank Study. “Tourist come to check their emails; students to research an assignment; aspiring entrepreneurs to learn about their target market ; established business people to write , print and bind proposals,” says the study.

It operates a big hall with 100 high speed flat screen computers, fully serviced executive office suites, high tech training and conference facilities and a 24hour digital documentation centre.
Other facilities include Busy ISP; a customer focused Internet Service Provider with a suite of Internet solutions for small businesses and large corporate organizations. “These include our flexible pay as you go dialup, wireless radio, and Vsat solutions. With a 24 hour technical support and monitoring crew in place, our customers enjoy a hassle free service,” Ms. Sowah explains.

Established in 2001, Busy Internet is the largest privately owned and operated centre of digital entrepreneurship in Africa with a mission to provide both commercial services as well as social and economic development. It has been featured as a promising hybrid model for Africa.
The company is located in a 14,00square foot piece of land which formerly housed the defunct gas bottling factory in the heart of the city and it is owned by Busy Internet International and two Ghanaian investments companies, Fidelity Capital Partners, Data Bank and Softribe.

Through a grant from the World Bank’s Infodev Incubator Programme, Busy internet launched an important programme to select and assist start-up companies with business plans to incubate them within Busy Internet’s premises for a period of 18 months.
The first of its kind in West Africa Ms. Sowah explains that the small incubation programme is designed to increase the chances of survival of young companies’ by providing them with a good opportunity to grow in a supportive and nurturing environment as well as promote economic growth by fostering private sector development.
Companies benefiting from the programme have access to professional advice in areas such as marketing, business development, financing as well as best practice standards.

Although she had no formal training in ICT, she says she is learning very fast since ICT is all about customer care, communication and meeting the needs of your clients.
She describes the art of combining family life with occupying a high position like hers as “tough but possible.”
“Being pregnant and running such a facility is no easy task,” she says.
“A few days after having my daughter, my laptop was on, and I was holding meetings at home with my managers among others,” she recalls. “Now that my daughter is one year old, my life is fully mine again,” she says. She said though she could spend more time with them, she is very happy now.

On the issue of blending marriage and work, Ms. Sowah says though she is not a feminist, but believes women must be allowed the freedom to work.”
When you have a career, which was part of your life before you got married, you have to continue, she believes. “For me Marriage is like two parallel lines, so long as the two of you are going the same direction, each partner must be able to manage with every situation.”

On future prospects of Busy Internet, Ms. Sowah says the ICT sector has changed drastically over the past two years.
“With Ghana Telecom Rolling out Internet services and the Mobile phone companies also coming in, we need to be more strategic to stay in business,” she says.