The Minister of ICT and Innovation Paula Ingabire has said that the upcoming Hanga Pitch Fest was designed around identifying the talent of innovators that are at a startup stage across the country.

Ingabire was explaining the essence of the competition in an interview with the national television.

She said that a total of 25 startups were expected to benefit from the development, but only five would be eligible for cash prizes.

The overall winner stands to win $50,000 while the other four will share the rest.

Ingabire said that government avoided going at ideation phase, citing that more such competitions targeting different levels of growth of the startups will be organized in the future

"But this time around we are starting with those that have a prototype, something that is ready to go to the market."

She also disclosed that a relative number of innovators had started submitting their proposals, which are expected to be evaluated by a selected jury.

Upon evaluation, she said that the jury will select 25 best innovations that will be subject to a two-week boot camp.

"We have mobilized many of the entrepreneurship support organisations in Rwanda, that are bringing in their expertise and capabilities."

She pointed out that the organisations will have a task to support them, train them, look at their business plans during the two weeks.

"This comes in to complement the different competitions that have been happening and for a country that aspires to be an innovation hub, ideally what we want to have is multiple competitions, hackathons happening every corner of the country."

Covid-19 has been a good eye-opening experience for the ecosystem, the Minister said.

For instance, she shared examples of young innovators who developed 3D face shields, platforms that are helping with disseminating the right information among other innovations.

"The price is not enough, we actually need more than that. it was a good starting point. And so if we are starting with $100,000 it is a good starting point and for us what we want to see is the appetite for this kind of ticket sizes of money that we are providing. It is not too large a pool of fund but it is good enough for a start."

Beyond the money

The Minister says that the biggest challenge for many innovators and entrepreneurs is access to capital.

But beyond that, she said, it is really about creating a mentorship network around them to help them fine-tune their products and bring them to the market, thinking through the policies and regulations, unlocking data for them because they rely on data for the support.

Ingabire also asserted that although the best five will be getting the prize money, the 25 will also get the same support that is going to be awarded to them.

"We also don’t want to give money and walk away but rather walk the journey with them."

She said there was a plan to introduce a one year program where the selected startups will be hand-held through the process.