New tech initiative seeks to empower young students, fresh graduates

Rwandan youth in the ICT sector have an opportunity to showcase their innovation and consequently receive support to develop them into businesses courtesy of an initiative dubbed ‘Tech Up Skill’, whose aim is to build interest in young people, and identify promising tech talents and innovators across the country. The upskilling programme is a 3-year project initiated by the Rwanda ICT Chamber in partnership with a German ICT association, BITMi, technology and innovation hubs FabLab and kLab, and 250startup, an incubation and acceleration, which is the project lead. The first cohort of the programme will target skilled students in ICT and Engineering related fields covering both software development as well as hardware innovations. Emmanuella Ndwano, the Community Manager at 250startup, said in Rwanda, most of the innovations in technology, start-ups, and ideas supporting projects, and initiatives are concentrated in the capital Kigali and there is little knowledge about tech talents outside the metropolis. The tech up-skill programme was therefore initiated with a view to focus on students and fresh graduates in the four provinces outside of Kigali that can be further supported, according to those behind the initiative. “To change the ecosystem we are in partnership with Rwanda Polytechnic, and it will involve going to different IPRC campuses across the country to conduct workshops and inform students more about the project, and pick the best from the ones who apply,” she told The New Times. “The aim of the project is to support talented students and fresh graduates, especially in the countryside with either tech projects that could be built into profitable businesses or talented students who wish to acquire more skills to become professionals, who will be trained for a period of six months with the help of different partners and professionals,” Ndwano said. Speaking to The New Times, Christophe Dushime, the lead project manager at Rwanda ICT Chamber, said they are looking at making young Rwandan IT techs ready for international jobs, and markets and to get them to be ready for international investors too. “They are students who want to be entrepreneurs; those will be channeled to 250startup and will be helped to develop their prototypes, those who want to be professionals will get support from Klab and be given skills and be ready for employment either locally or internationally,” he said. “Our end goal is to identify and promote young talents and innovators, at the end of the project, a hackathon will be organised and the best performing team will be given internship opportunities to Germany through the BITMi network, the rest of the team will be linked with investors for their projects and potential employers from all the tech companies in Rwanda,” Dushime added. For eligible young students or fresh graduates, applications are now being accepted until June 17 through the following link https://techupskill.250.rw/.

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New tech initiative seeks to empower young students, fresh graduates