Jorge Appiah

Jorge Appiah, also known as George Kwadwo Appiah, is a Ghanaian technology entrepreneur and the founder and chief executive of Solar Taxi, a company that designs and locally assembles electric vehicles. He is also a co-founder of Kumasi Hive and a long-standing builder of Ghana's innovation ecosystem.

Education

Appiah earned a master's degree in renewable energy technology from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 2016, and in the same year completed a Master of Business Administration with Edinburgh Business School.

Building hubs

In 2014 he founded the Ghana Hubs Network, which brings together the country's innovation centres. A year later he co-founded Kumasi Hive, a coworking, training and incubation space that promotes social and technology entrepreneurship in Ghana's second city. He has also served as executive director of Ghana Tech Lab, a digital innovation programme focused on skills and entrepreneurship.

Solar Taxi

Solar Taxi was founded in 2018. The company assembles electric bikes, tricycles and small cars in Ghana, trains local people to operate them and offers affordable, low-emission transport, with a path for customers to own their vehicles. It has operated branches in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tema and Tamale, and has drawn attention for a workforce in which women make up about 80 per cent of staff. Solar Taxi is a member of the Solar Impulse Foundation's World Alliance for Efficient Solutions.

Other work

Appiah has worked as a research assistant at The Energy Center at KNUST and runs QuadSolar, a solar installation company. His ventures share one idea: that clean energy and mobility for Ghana can be engineered and built in Ghana.