The second edition of PechaKucha Night Kigali that took place on Thursday night at Westerwelle Startup Haus, was well-attended, and left the audience with a number of take home lessons. PechaKucha is a fast-paced format in which each speaker has 20 slides, each set to automatically move forward after 20 seconds, with a total of six minutes and forty seconds available to each speaker to drive their point home. The event that was first introduced in Kigali in June, this year, has seen a number of young professionals, showcase their ideas and work to an audience of mostly young people, and has become a networking platform. There was a total of twelve presenters, who hailed from various fields such as; architecture, academia, martial arts, entrepreneurship, cultural intelligence and design. The night’s first presenter was Blaise Dusi, an educator and martial artist, whose presentation centered around Martial arts, who took the audience into a deeper meaning behind the art including its symbols, educating the audience on a number of tactics and the importance of martial arts. Chef Patrice Shema talked about introducing street food in Kigali. All photos by Craish Bahizi. Emmanuel Nyirikindi, an architect and registrar educator at the school of Architecture and the Built Environment University of Rwanda, also made a presentation on the journey of Rwanda’s architectural fraternity and their achievements over the years. “We make sure the profession is on the right track and people follow the ethical means. We don’t want to be based on just a house as a component but a house as a living component to someone because a house can guide how you live your life so that excellence and performance of what we create is we aim at,” he said. He also shared in on the fraternity’s paradigm shift moving from 15 structures, in 1994 to 110 structures to date. Gloria Tengera, a certified John Maxwell Coach speaker and trainer, talked about his book, ‘The laws of growth’, which explains about rules of being strategic. Some of the laws in the book include being intentional, the law of awareness and consistency, the inspiration gap, and comparison gap. “If you are interested in personal growth you will need to be intentional about it and overcome the obstacles in the tracks. If you are interested in personal growth, you will need to make the transition now,” she concluded her presentation. Karen Bugingo, an entrepreneur and author, talked about digital marketing strategies that have helped her business grow from jewellery to other accessories. Jovanis Rutayisire, an interior designer and educator at University of Rwanda, talked about things people can make use of coffee, other than drinking it, such as making wall hangings, still life photography as opposed to just being an addiction. “Instead of drinking coffee, you can actually paint with it and smell it. Coffee has different concentrations which can give you darker tones or lighter tones making your painting look beautiful. So if you want to come up with a concept, for photographers, illustrators or designers, and you need a beautiful subtle concept, then coffee is the way to go because of the cool tones it has and can be mixed with other colors to come up with something beautiful.” Patrice Shema spoke about the art and convenience of street food that is not necessarily junk food, a new concept in Rwanda that was inspired from Europe. “I buy every ingredient from Kimironko market and the fact that I am a chef I am trying to create this culture because we are living in a very fast paced situation where everybody is busy, so food carts could easily maneuver for you and we could boost the tourism industry,” he said. Different from the traditional text-heavy PowerPoint presentation, PechaKucha entails short, concise presentations of an individual’s ambitions, ideas, dreams, projects, or philosophy with a view to finding creative solutions. It was conceived as a forum for young designers to meet, network, and showcase their ideas or work. The second edition of PechaKucha was well-attended. (Craish Bahizi) Now in over 1,000 cities across the globe, PechaKucha nights are typically held in bars, restaurants, night clubs, studios, beaches, around swimming pools, and studios –basically any public space where people can interface in a relaxed way. It was formulated by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham Architecture, based in Tokyo, Japan, inspired by their desire to “talk less, show more”. It describes a new style of presentation that has been on the rise since 2003. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
