Over 100 students on Friday completed a 3-day entrepreneurship summit dubbed Accelerate Academy, at Adventist University of Central Africa (AUCA), in Kacyiru. During the session, students from various Rwandan universities were trained and equipped with entrepreneurial skills. The program dubbe was introduced on the first day of the summit by ‘These Numbers Have Faces’; an organisation that offers interest-free loans to Rwandan university students with strong leadership qualities and also trains and guides them in leadership development, they learnt how to design brief practical business plans, pitching and marketing their businesses, among things. Tina Anderson, the organisation’s International Program Director, said the three-day summit was aimed at training students and equipping them with necessary skills to help them realise their potential. “We want to help Rwandan students create their own businesses. We managed to select 105 students from 300 applicants. However we will make another selection where only 25 students will be picked to participate in the Accelerate Academy for 9 months, studying business lessons,” Anderson said, adding that students will also learn public speaking. Sonia Umwari, a graduate from University of Rwanda’s College of Science and Technology, said that she will benefit a lot from the entrepreneurial skills, she acquired at the summit. “We had inspiring mentors who taught us how to make attractive business plans and finally refined new ideas from different colleagues who converged there. More so, with the idea of art crafts’ online market that I already had, I learnt how to innovate it and make it feasible,” she noted. Willy Nsabiyumva, a student at Mahatma Gandhi University said it was a good networking session. “Personally, the summit was meant to network and interact with other graduates and get to know what we need to do as young Rwandans to develop. I not only learnt how to make a pitch but also to market my business; for instance I got to know that sales and marketing are the heartbeats of business,” he explained. “Starting a business doesn’t need to have a lot of money, but passion, commitment, confidence and courage. This is one of the principles I got from this entrepreneurship training,” Diane Mukamazimpaka, a student at Akilah Institute said.
