MTN Ghana has announced partnerships to strengthen Ghana’s gaming ecosystem through skills development, market access and the use of gamification to support industries including agriculture and education.
Chief Digital Officer of MTN Ghana, Ibrahim Misto, disclosed this during an interview session at the MTN Digifest 2026 Gaming Conference in Accra.
He said the partnerships formed part of MTN Ghana’s efforts to move beyond participating in the gaming sector to taking a leading role in developing an ecosystem that brings together game developers, academia, policymakers, investors, private-sector players and startups.
“We don’t want to do a conference for the sake of conference. Let’s set the role and set an example in terms of partnerships,” Mr Misto said.
Under one of the partnerships, MTN Ghana is supporting the establishment of a gaming academy with Leti Arts to equip young talents and developers with the skills required to develop games.
According to Mr Misto, the academy will provide the skills while MTN Ghana will provide access to its customer base, which he said has more than 31 million customers.
He said the combination of skills development and market access would help create opportunities for entrepreneurship and businesses for young talents.
MTN Ghana has also announced a partnership with Ashesi University to support a gaming hub or gaming lab designed to develop gamification use cases for sectors such as agriculture and education.
Mr Misto said the lab would explore how gamification could contribute to different industries through practical use cases.
He added that MTN Ghana, Ashesi University and Leti Arts would contribute towards developing the appropriate curriculum, talents and skills needed to deliver such use cases.
Bridging academia and industry
Mr Misto said MTN Ghana was also working to address the gap between academic training and opportunities available to young people after completing their education.
He said the company was providing internship opportunities while also supporting initiatives aimed at connecting students’ academic projects with problems that exist in the market.
He cited MTN Ghana’s partnership with the University of Ghana on an AI academy, through which the company is sponsoring final-year projects and students.
According to him, MTN Ghana is working with students to identify local problems that can influence their choice of final-year projects.
The objective, he said, is for students to develop solutions to existing market problems that could eventually become business opportunities.
Mr Misto said the combination of academic support, practical problem-solving and internship opportunities was intended to help close the gap between education and the digital economy.
He said MTN Ghana’s gaming initiative was therefore not simply a conference but an enabling platform intended to facilitate further partnerships among startups, academia and investors, with support from policymakers.
