Africa Agri-Food Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate, Belinda Ntow Visits the United Kingdom
Miss Belinda Ntow, Research Assistant/Associate on the African Agri-food Knowledge Transfer Partnership (AAKTP) project at the Department of Food Science and Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) visited the University of Huddersfield (UoH), UK and Ashorne Hill Management College, UK for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Residential training programme. The training programme is part of the AAKTP project (AAKTP-13910 / IUK Project No. 10097922) between KNUST, UoH, University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) and the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), Ghana. This innovative collaboration is funded by Innovate UK.
The first trip was from 18th to 21st November 2024, at Ashorne Hill, UK, where participants were taught in Module 1: project management, good communication skills, listening, understanding oneself and others, and leadership styles and how to be better at it.
She then visited the project team at the University of Huddersfield from the 22nd to the 26th of November 2024. They discussed the project's progress and performed some laboratory analysis on the pectin extracted at KNUST.
As part of the second trip, Belinda also visited the academic supervisors at UoH from the 19th to the 21st of February 2025. During this visit, some analyses were run on the extracted pectin samples from sesame and okra.
From UoH, she then visited and participated in Module 2 residential training programme at Ashorne Hill Management College from 24th to 27th February 2025. This training covered basic knowledge on financial principles, the need for market research and aligning business goals with market insights to make informed decisions. Knowledge gained theoretically was applied through business simulations.
Following a successful visit and residential training in the UK, Belinda returned to KNUST, Ghana, and continued her work on the AAKTP project. The AAKTP-13910 Team include Prof. Jacob K. Agbenorhevi (Academic Lead, KNUST), Prof. Gordon Morris (Academic Lead/PI, UoH), Prof. Alan Smith (Academic Supervisor, UoH), Dr. Fidelis Kpodo (Academic Supervisor, UHAS), Dr. Frank Asante (Company Manager, CPC) and Genevieve Pawar (Company Supervisor, CPC). The project aims to develop novel sustainable plant pectins from locally sourced low-market value species for use in chocolate-based products.