The germ of the idea for the Week came from scholar Julia Fan Li.
Rwandan students are taking part in the first Rwanda Entrepreneurship Week next week.
The Week, which runs from 25 to 30 July, was set up by a Cambridge team from the University of Cambridge Beyond Profit group, including Gates scholar Julia Fan Li [2008].
Julia worked in Rwanda in 2009 on a report on financial management of Kigali’s King Faisal Hospital and noticed that despite the entrepreneurial spirit of all the students she met, there was an absence of structured support for them to learn and apply their skills outside the classroom.
After a meeting with the prestigious Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda, the African Innovation Prize was born: the first business planning competition for students in Rwanda who wanted to set up their own enterprises.
The Week is being run in association with KIST.
The Cambridge team is made up of Julia who is doing a PhD in Engineering, Alex Handy who helped set up Beyond Profit, Jackie Stenson who has worked on several technology and development initiatives, Sarah Teacher who is doing an MPhil in Development Studies, and Baillie Aaron, founder of Venturing Out which teaches entrepreneurship.
Sessions include ideas brainstorming, product development strategy, teamwork and how to write a business. Students taking part do workshops, but can also have one to one sessions with the Cambridge team.
The Week was publicised by the British High Commission in Kigali.
Rwanda Enterprise Week document
Picture credit: Idea Go and www.freedigitalphotos.net
