A one-year deal between the African Management Institute (AMI) and the Rwanda ICT Chamber will provide business training to entrepreneurs in the ICT sector to reinforce their skills and boost women’s participation in the sector. The partnership aims to reach out to more than 2,000 people working in this sector including digital services agents, digital ambassadors and platform workers among others. Under the programme, AMI will offer its sponsored virtual Business Survival Bootcamp in English and Kinyarwanda to tech entrepreneurs across the country and give them access to its online learning platform, where entrepreneurs will learn about risk assessment, scenario planning and cash flow forecasting among other skills to support their business to grow and thrive. This is aimed at assisting small businesses to tackle the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and equip them with the skills, tools and strategies to manage risk and identify new opportunities for growth. Malik Shaffy, AMI’s Country Director described the development as a unique partnership that will “increase the number of women thriving in Rwanda’s digital economy.” Female entrepreneur Yvette Uwimpaye, founder of the online store Murukali Market Smart said she looks forward to the training, saying it can equip her with knowledge about making up for the losses she made due to Covid-19 pandemic, “The pandemic affected my business both positively and negatively. We had more customers ordering online, however, they were buying fresh products such as perishable food. “It was hard to keep up with the demand due to movement restrictions. This impacted our operations and caused us to lose customers and revenue. I’m excited to take part in the Business Survival Bootcamp because I want to recover losses and make my e-commerce business more profitable,” she said. To date, 114 entrepreneurs have already benefited from AMI’s sponsored programme in partnership with the ICT Chamber. Alex Ntale, CEO of Rwanda ICT Chamber said the content in the programmes is very relevant to all sizes of businesses especially those affected by Covid-19 and those which want to digitalize.
