Caylee Talpert, Deputy Director of the Pears Innovation for International Development Program based at Tel Aviv University, shared an opinion piece with NextBillion.net about her observations in Rwanda as she worked with entrepreneurs. Here is an excerpt from that piece: “Earlier this month, I was exposed to some of Rwanda’s aspiring young entrepreneurs at a series of innovation workshops hosted at kLab, Kigali’s thriving tech hub. The workshops where run by an innovative Israeli startup called nFrnds in partnership with the Pears Innovation for International Development Program. nFrnds has created a USSD-based mobile platform, “Connecting the Unconnected,” on even the most basic phones. The company’s products currently include chat, email, Wikipedia and mobile agriculture solutions, but as we would learn throughout the workshop, the possibilities for this technology are virtually limitless. During the two-day workshops, participants learned systematic innovative thinking methodologies and rapid prototyping techniques to create working prototypes of innovative mobile services, without any programming background. Services created ranged from receiving advice on agriculture inputs, to managing doctors’ appointments, booking public transportation and a micro-savings device based on mobile money. With partners such as MTN and Tigo, each of which sponsored a workshop, as well as Microsoft 4Afrika, think and kLab, representatives from various respected outfits all offered their encouragement and support to the young entrepreneurs. The message, time and time again, was clear: There is huge potential for converting some of these services into viable businesses, especially as nFrnds is launched in Rwanda in the coming weeks.” Pictured above, kLab (knowledge Lab) is a unique open technology hub in Kigali where students, fresh graduates, entrepreneurs and innovators come to work on their ideas/projects to turn them into viable business models. kLab’s mission is to promote, facilitate and support the development of innovative ICT solutions by nurturing a vivid community of entrepreneurs and mentors. rwandapost.org/2014/08/15/israeli-innovation-meets-rwandan-entrepreneurship/
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 09:45:54 +0000
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