How Rubanzacumu, Uwintwali have transformed communities through entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship traditionally entails designing, launching and running a given business. When one adds passion, resilience and enduring vision, the combination often leads to innovation and creativity that surpasses most in terms of quality of work, service or product offered by an entrepreneur. Rwanda has a youthful population driven by the passion of entrepreneurship aimed at making a difference in local communities. Today, they are even investing their ideas, time and money in sectors of the economy that most young people shunned in the past. 28-year-old Dawson Rubanzacumu is the brain behind East Africa Trek Safaris a local tourism company that offers services to tourists in the country. Before taking his stand in the lucrative tourism industry, Rubanzacumu was a banker. “Even when I was engaged in formal employment, I knew that ultimately I wanted to be an entrepreneur and start a company of my own. I knew that I had a passion for tourism so my job helped me save my start-up capital, make various connections and also gather valuable experience in the business environment,” he said. The government has invested a lot of efforts to position the tourism sector to fetch more revenue so it’s one of the most competitive sectors of the economy. Rubanzacumu explains that his company offers a competitive edge in terms of quality of their services and the uniqueness of the package they provide. “We offer our clients an opportunity to live and experience the Rwandan way of life as part of their overall journey. During peak seasons we work with local communities who incorporate visitors in their daily lives and engage them in social activities like Umuganda. With this we ensure that those who visit the country really get a taste of what it is to be a local,” he explained. Their Inspiration 27-year-old Lilian Uwintwali first came into the limelight after walking way with $150,000 (Rwf115million) prize money jointly awarded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), and the World Food Prize Foundation to an entrepreneur who had set up an innovative, market-based approach to address food security back in 2014. Today, she is the founder and chief executive officer of M-Ahwii, a Kigali-based software development firm. Apart from creating softwares, the company also engineers innovations that foster solutions in the information, communication and technology arena. Uwintwali says that even at the tender age of 12, she knew she wanted to be her own boss. “I used my background in computer engineering and information technology to start M-Ahwii. From there we realised we could bridge the information, communication and technology gap in the country which is where our work in agriculture commenced. Local famers aren’t informed or fully comprehend the demand and supply level and fluctuations in the market, bank services or they are exploited because they lack the knowledge,” she said. “Our system provides very simple technology for the farmers to access all the information they need using simplified mobile apps that provide them with market information, general agriculture knowledge and ensures that they communicate directly to the concerned stakeholders,” Uwintwali said adding that they are currently working with 10 cooperatives from all provinces of the country. On the other hand, Rubanzacumu was inspired to establish a tourism company in his quest to intertwine and create a viable business that not only redefines the image of the country but also creates opportunities of work for the locals. “I have always had a special interaction with nature and remain fascinated with the history of our country which is not only very dark but also transformed impressively overtime. The Rwandan narrative is unique, even simply gauging from movies one can see that the narratives elsewhere portray those who seek revenge as heroes. In Rwanda it’s different because heroism lies in forgiveness and community. That’s the narrative and social culture which I aspire to show the world because therein lies Ubumuntu (humanity) in its sincerest form,” he said. Challenges Uwaintwali says the biggest challenge her company faces is mindset change which affects the sustainability of her project. She adds that Agriculture is an ageing sector and therefore it takes twice the effort for farmers to grasp technology and embrace modern ways of farming. “The farmers we are targeting do not understand the value of the project itself and before anything else I find myself engaged in capacity building. Also infrastructure in place is not ready yet to support the system but once its opened to the public, there will be a lot of traffic of data. We are still trying to engineer appropriate solutions to all these challenges,” she said adding that partnerships is vital for ICT to prosper and therefore concerned partners can engage in capacity building so that people can embrace the digital and tech era bettering sectors of the economy. Rubanzacumu identifies difficulty in building a trust worthy and capable team as well as capital shortage as some of the challenges he faced in the initial stage of establishing his enterprise. “In this industry, the people we work with like drivers and tour guides are paramount because we put our clients in their hands. Therefore making the right choices either makes or breaks the business. I started with 1.5 million francs which went primarily into branding and building my website.” he said. “I took a big risk leaving my comfortable well paying job to invest in my passion. By doing this, I am required to work twice as hard to make this choice worthwhile. We are also privileged to be backed by the government which is constantly conserving and exploiting resources as well as maintaining security which are all vital for the successes of this industry.” he added. Way forward Uwintwali presents her vision in the next 10 years as taking her tech solution to the African level. She says that as a continent we share similar challenge in the agricultural and ICT sector and if tech solutions can work in Rwanda, then they can also work elsewhere in Africa. Currently, profit wise we are benefitting from concerned stakeholders, we shall start charging farmers next year when we open the system up to the public. Eventually, we are aiming at becoming the leading knowledge brain of agriculture in Africa.” she said. Uwintwali goes on to urge young people to consider agriculture as there are many funding opportunities and solutions yet to be created. As the Vice chairperson for Rwanda youth agricultural forum, she says agriculture is becoming more attractive by the day and can be made a viable business. On the other hand Rubanzacumu explains that his long time objective is to provide thousands of jobs for youth in country pertaining to the tourism and creative industry. He adds that he intends to construct hotels, resorts and eventually export his services to the region. “Rwanda is a beautiful country with various resources- yet to be fully exploited which I intend to get involved in, a unique and captivation history as well as a hospitable culture and security. I see myself exploiting all of that and building on it to make Rwanda one of the most attractive tourist destinations of Africa.” he said. Rubanzacumu concludes by noting that Rwanda is striving to achieve economic self reliance and that will happen once young people challenge themselves to find innovative ways to make money and create jobs. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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How Rubanzacumu, Uwintwali have transformed communities through entrepreneurship