Exploring the World

Kigali

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Kigali is the capitol of a very small country, Rwanda. For a place in Africa, it is remarkable for its clean roads, its no plastic bag policy and the famous Umuganda - the community work day - every last Saturday of the month.

Innovation and ICT have been clearly identified as growth engines for the country. It is even more backed by the government since it’s very little cash-intensive and with the ability to impact every single sectors of the country. In a country that composes with one of the highest density of population, most of them farmers, numbers of ICT initiatives have brought the whole country into a weird mix of tech-forward and tech-backward situations. For instance, some 7yo kids will spent 3 hours a day to carry and bring water to their home, and spent 3 others hours on a granted computer to code their first mobile app…

The startup scene is still very young in Kigali, almost no local capital investments, and yet it is tackling visible problems and deeply transforming the country.

Remarkable places 

Klab 

The government is proud of its pre-incubator.

Spearhead of the national ICT strategy, Klab is a free space for young pupils and young entrepreneurs to learn and share ICT skills. I saw there 7 yo kids learning how to code. Actually he was preparing the App development contest on July !

Renown over Africa, they actually provide support to other governments that want to establish the same kind of program.

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website: klab.rw

Kigali