The Minister of Trade and Industry, Francois Kanimba, has heaped praise on a new entrepreneurship project that seeks to extend financial services and exposure to young business operators in Rwanda.

Project Inspire is a TV reality show scheduled to start in July with 30 contestants, six from each East African Community (EAC) partner states , aimed at promoting young entrepreneurs.

Speaking at the project’s launch in Rwanda, Kanimba pledged government’s support to the project saying that such an initiative is in line with national programmes aimed at empowering small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

"SME growth in Rwanda is one of our biggest priorities and we welcome all efforts that aim to uplift them,” Kanimba said.

"To see that the project is engineered by young people who want to help their fellow young and enterprising minds, is a selfless and innovative approach indicating the maturity of upcoming African investors”.

Kanimba added that although Project Inspire is designed to give  back to the EAC  societies, it must also stand the taste of time by seeking to make profit in a bid to have it  flourish as an added  benefit to the young minds behind it.

The CEO of Inspire Africa (the parent body of the project), Nelson Tugume, said that the sole goal of the project is to engineer successful entrepreneurship in Africa by identifying the best business minds and supporting their ideas.

"Project Inspire will systematically empower the best upcoming entrepreneurs by providing them with practical entrepreneurial experiences, while exposing them to sufficient financial head start and mentorship,” Tugume said during the launch.

The contestants will be required to perform specific tasks, whereby the winner will walk away with $50,000 (Rwf29.6m).

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