TAKING THE POWER OF
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO THE WORLD
BABSON-RWANDA ENTREPRENEURSHIP CENTER 2012 ANNUAL REPORT
BREC ANNUAL REPORT 2012
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from the Executive Director
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On the Ground in Kigali 5 Making the Transition 6 At A Glance 7 Creating an Entrepreneurial Environment
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Enhancing Entrepreneurship Education
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Supporting Local Businesses 23 The Future of BREC 27 Web Links 30 Contact Information 31
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LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR In its second full year of operations, the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center (BREC) continues to grow its influence within Rwanda as it expands the scope of the entrepreneurial development work it has been doing since October 2010. BREC is one of the most visible examples of Babson College’s commitment to creating great economic and social value around the world through entrepreneurship. What has been achieved thus far by BREC is due in most part to the tireless efforts of BREC’s first two country directors, Benjamin Cox and Chris Smith. Ben and Chris completed their two-year tour of duty in October 2012 and what they were able to achieve is nothing short of amazing. Through their efforts, BREC is now well-known to just about every government and private organization in the country focused on entrepreneurial development. Perhaps the most visible example of their work is Rwanda’s participation in Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW). Before they took on the task as national conveners in 2011, Rwanda was not even a participant in this international celebration. Through the creativity and efforts of Ben and Chris, GEW now involves thousands of participants from across the country and has put Rwanda on the world stage. I expect that our new country directors, Haya Alzaid and Rayshawn Whitford, will continue the great work started by Ben and Chris while bringing their own unique creativity and energy to BREC. They bring with them a wealth of experience on issues related to entrepreneurship education and development, but more importantly they bring with them a commitment to making a difference in Rwanda. Their strong connections to the Babson community will make it easy for them to leverage the power of the Babson network to create new initiatives that further promote entrepreneurial development in the country. Please take a minute to study the cover of this year’s annual report. It is actually a painting done during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012 signed by youths, small business owners and prospective entrepreneurs. I believe that it captures the spirit of BREC’s mandate. Its bright and vivid colors signal hope and progress while the many signatures and comments represent the growing community of entrepreneurs that BREC has helped to develop in Rwanda. We continue to look for partners and investors who will help us to grow this community and make it even brighter and more promising. As you read this annual report, you will truly see how entrepreneurship can impact an entire nation. I hope you will consider joining with Babson and the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center to help us have an even greater impact in Rwanda. Your support and involvement can truly change the world.
Dennis M. Hanno Executive Director, Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Babson College Babson Park, MA USA
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ON THE GROUND IN KIGALI We are proud to take over as the second Babson team responsible for the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center. Our predecessors, Chris Smith and Ben Cox, have built an amazing foundation on which we can build. Our prior travels to places like Costa Rica, Ghana, Morocco, South Africa, Tanzania and Turkey have helped us to see the impact that Entrepreneurial Thought and Action has on people all around the world. This convinced us that taking over the reins at BREC would be an amazing opportunity for us to not only impact the lives of the people we work with, but to help Rwanda continue the rapid economic growth the country has achieved over the last decade. Our first months in Rwanda have been a whirlwind of activity; transitioning into the working world while learning the ins-and-outs of a new environment has been both a rewarding and taxing experience. Since landing on September 6th we’ve had a fullplate—meeting with partners; helping to plan and execute Global Entrepreneurship Week; leading the way on BREC’s first country-wide essay competition and developing relationships among the staff of our local partner the Private Sector Federation. All while figuring out how to drive a manual transmission car in the land of a thousand hills, finding our way through Kigali, and trying to learn a new language. We believe that Entrepreneurial Thought and Action can be used to make the world a better place and look forward to proving this in our next two years of service to Babson and to the people and organizations of Rwanda.
Haya Alzaid BREC - Country Director
Rayshawn Whitford BREC - Country Director
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MAKING THE TRANSITION It has been an honor to serve as the founding Country Directors for the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center. We are extremely proud of all that we have been able to accomplish to benefit Rwanda’s business community. In two short years, the Center has launched multiple programs to promote an entrepreneurial environment, support entrepreneurship education, and provide direct services that help managers and business owners successfully grow their organizations – thereby contributing to Rwanda’s development. More than ever, we are convinced of the transformative power of entrepreneurship to stimulate opportunity and improve livelihoods across the world. As you look through the pages of this report and read of our work, we hope that you too will come to the same conclusions. Furthermore, representing Babson and its values on a global stage has been an absolute privilege. We are deeply grateful for the tremendous support from all parts of the Babson Community and hope that everyone will extend the same level of backing to our successors. We have the utmost confidence in the abilities of the new Country Directors, Haya Alzaid and Rayshawn Whitford, and are thrilled to watch them grow existing programs and take the Center in new and exciting directions – continuing to contribute to Rwanda’s bright future. The last two years have been an incredible journey. Thank you for working alongside us to create an amazing organization that generates meaningful impact across the region. We are truly appreciative of all of your support. With gratitude and warm regards, we are yours in service.
Benjamin D. Cox BREC - Founding Country Director
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Christopher D. Smith BREC - Founding Country Director
AT A GLANCE Since the Center was founded two years ago, BREC has had an impact out of proportion to its size. Here are some indicators of BREC’s influence in creating an entrepreneurial environment, enhancing entrepreneurship education, and supporting local businesses in Rwanda. CREATING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ENVIRONMENT EMPOWERING YOUTH & WOMEN FOR PRODUCTIVITY
Hosted 50 diverse activities throughout Global Entrepreneurship Week around this theme that involved over 20,000 participants in the country.
LEVERAGING PARTNERSHIPS In developing Global Entrepreneurship Week, BREC partnered with the Rwanda Board of Education and Ministry of Youth as well as mobilized the support of 45 other organizations.
ENHANCING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION CREATING YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS
Hosted Babson Entrepreneurial Leadership Academies in Rwanda and Tanzania reaching over 200 students. Rwandan students came from across the country (26 schools). Five students receive mentoring and will be offered a microloan from BREC as they start their businesses.
CONNECTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATORS
Piloted the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Educators Network in partnership with UNIDO provinding a workshop and toolkit for educators from around the country.
SUPPORTING LOCAL BUSINESSES KNOWLEDGE BUILDING WORKSHOPS
ADVISING LOCAL BUSINESSES
Hosted 2nd annual 2-day series of knowledge building workshops for 50 leading business owners selected by the Private Sector Federation.
Launched management consulting projects working directly with Rwandan owned and operated businesses to devise strategies to overcome obstacles to growth.
ENDORSEMENTS Working with Babson has been timely and an extra strength in building Rwandan entrepreneurial society. The collaboration of UNIDO & BREC has capitalized on building synergies and complemented one another particularly in the area of in-service entrepreneurship teacher training. Babson College has demonstrated effective mechanisms of bringing teachers and students together in the classroom for enhanced entrepreneurship learning outcomes. Also, the collaboration has increased coherence and harmonized approaches in teaching entrepreneurship. - James Kagaba | National Expert United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
The Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center (BREC) have been a great addition to the Global Entrepreneurship Week community. They have shown great knowledge of the entrepreneurship community in Rwanda and have excelled in building the ecosystem. They are a valuable organization in growing GEW in Rwanda and across the globe. - Brenden Chaney | Vice President, Global Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW)
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CREATING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ENVIRONMENT A key part of our portfolio of projects at BREC is strengthening the overall entrepreneurial environment. In the past, we’ve furthered that goal by conducting research, creating networks for support organizations, increasing the availability of business resources, and building and improving public perception of entrepreneurship. This year, we consolidated a large portion of those initiatives into Global Entrepreneurship Week. Global Entrepreneurship Week is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. During one week each November, GEW inspires people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators. Although GEW only occurs during a single week of the year, the impacts of the program are felt throughout the year.
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GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEEK: BIGGER AND BETTER Global Entrepreneurship Week Impact Report[1]
GEW Unleashing Ideas www.facebook.com/ unleashingideas www.twitter.com/#!/ unleashingideas www.flickr.com/photos/ unleashingideas www.youtube.com/ unleashingideas GEW Rwanda www.facebook.com/ gewrwanda www.twitter.com/ gewrwanda www.youtube.com/user/ GEWrwanda
Global Entrepreneurship Week is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch start-ups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. During one week each November, GEW inspires people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators. We took on the role of National Host Organization for Rwanda’s first Global Entrepreneurship Week campaign in 2011. With the support of several local entrepreneurshipsupport organizations, we put together an amazing week of events and activities that reached over 12,000 people – connecting them to potential collaborators, mentors and investors, while also introducing them to new possibilities and exciting opportunities. In 2012, we sought to build upon the successes of the inaugural GEW/ Rwanda campaign with the aim of hosting one of the largest and most impactful campaigns on the African continent. To that end, we launched a strategic partnership with the Rwandan Ministry of Youth and ICT (MYICT) and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) that helped us mobilize the support of 45 other organizations. Together, we rallied around the theme of, “Empowering Youth and Women for Productivity,” and hosted 50 diverse activities spread over the week including our first Globally Featured Event, Meet the Lions. The spectacular scale of GEW/Rwanda represents our most significant effort to promote an entrepreneurial culture at the grassroots level and encourage policies that favor business creation. Take a peek at the GEW/Rwanda website, www.GEWRwanda.org, for a closer look at how our 2012 campaign came together!
“Working with the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center gave me the opportunity to share trends in the entrepreneurship field around the globe with Rwandan policy makers, private sector leaders and the heads of entrepreneurship support organizations as well as the youth we hope to inspire to become entrepreneurs. The trip also gave us the perfect opportunity to visit with ANDE members in Rwanda and meet with prospective members as we work to grow our East Africa regional chapter.” Randall Kempner, Executive Director of Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE)
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STRATEGIC PARTNERS
SPONSORS Global Founders
National Sponsors
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OPENING CEREMONY Minister: It is not the end, this is just a milestone and I want to thank everyone here for being a part of it. #GEWRwanda #opening GEWRwanda Nov 12, 2012, 12:12pm
@GEWRwanda @Real Role of Youth Entrepreneurship in achieving Rwanda’s Vision 2020. An inspiring presentation by Douglas Ogeto (EDUCAT)
In addition to coordinating the efforts of 45 partner organizations and marketing the week to the public, we organized an Opening Ceremony to kick off the week with a bang! Over 500 youth, small business owners, and prospective entrepreneurs joined us at Kimisagara Youth Center on Monday, November 12 to learn more about the future of entrepreneurship in Rwanda and embrace their potential as catalysts for economic development. Mr. Randall Kempner, the Executive Director of Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs; Ms. Rica Rwigamba, a former tourism entrepreneur and currently the head of the conservation department at RDB; Mr. Hannington Namara, Chief Executive Officer of the Private Sector Federation; and the honorable Minister Jean Philbert Nsengimana of the Ministry of Youth and ICT graced the stage and shared their thoughts on the topic of the day.
SENRwanda Nov 13, 2012, 4:49pm
We r extremely hapy 2 be part of the @GEWRwanda this year too. Wishin a sucessful week to all the events taking place. Entrepreneurship oye TheServiceMag Nov 11, 2012, 12:58pm
Economic crisis + new generational values + connective technology = a boom in social entrepreneurship. @rkempner #GEWRwanda #socent GEWRwanda Nov 12, 2012, 11:11am
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CLOSING CEREMONY On Saturday, November 17th a range of people including students, young professionals, entrepreneurs, government officials and private sector executives came together to celebrate the success of Rwanda’s second GEW campaign. Mr. Arne Forstenberg spoke to the audience about 21 business ideas for the 21st century; exciting students and entrepreneurs alike with the possibilities for electric bicycles and the creation of community marketplaces like Airbnb. Mrs. Antonina Kayitesi, Country Director of Women for Women International, explained the work that was done throughout the week to highlight the women’s component of the week’s theme. She then introduced the audience to one of WfWI’s district competition winners who shared the story of her business. Awards were presented to the students that won the Power of Entrepreneurship Essay Contest and Mr. Paul Van Apeldoorn, Acting CEO of Bank Populaire du Rwanda, presented a check for two million rwandan francs to Teta Isibo—the winner of Educat’s Real Business Accelerator. Mrs. Rosemary Mbabazi, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and ICT offered the closing remarks.
BABSON COLLEGE POWER OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP ESSAY CONTEST Entrepreneurship is often lauded for its ability to transform lives, communities, and even nations. In celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week, we challenged secondary school students across Rwanda to share their thoughts on the transformative power of entrepreneurship. Students representing all corners of the country submitted essays providing specific examples of how and why entrepreneurship is creating positive changes in their realities. We were impressed by the candor and insight evident in all of the submissions. Faustin Shema from G.S. St. Mathieu Busasamana took home the top prize as the winner of our first ever Power of Entrepreneurship Essay Contest, but the level of engagement is evidence of how Rwanda’s youth have embraced business as a means to improve their lives and that of their communities.
“Entrepreneurs in their nature have the habit of seeing what is missing in the community and they take risks by planning accordingly how they may start to produce the missing products or services.” Faustin Shema G.S. St. Mathieu Busasamana First Place Essay
The Power of Entrepreneurship[2] by Faustin Shema (1st) Entrepreneurship, An Engine of Development[3] by Jean Kagame (2nd) Power of Entrepreneurship[4] by Denyse Umutoni (3rd)
“Entrepreneurship has become a powerful weapon to fight against poverty and unemployment. It transforms not only the people’s financial situations but also the ways of thinking and the ways of doing things.” Denyse Umutoni G.S. Notre Dame de Lourdes Byimana Third Place Essay
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ENHANCING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION The Government of Rwanda has prioritized entrepreneurship education in its schools. Since 2008, every secondary school student has gone through entrepreneurship courses that introduce them to the notions of identifying opportunities, starting new ventures, and managing small businesses. Considering our extensive institutional knowledge in entrepreneurship education across the world, we viewed this as an area where we could clearly add value. With that in mind we have embarked on several fronts to develop programs that utilize our intellectual assets to support and strengthen entrepreneurship education both in Rwanda and throughout the East African region.
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BABSON ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP ACADEMY RWANDA An African Journey[5] by John Crawford Babson Magazine Fall 2012
We launched the Babson Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy in 2011 with the intent to supplement the school system’s entrepreneurship courses. The Academy is a week-long, residential program that challenges students to develop business-based solutions to needs within their communities. This year, we grew the program to include nearly 100 students from 26 different schools! Guided by the Ideas to Action workbook authored by Dean Dennis Hanno and others, specifically for BELA, the students learn the principles of entrepreneurship and how to become leaders in their communities. Dean Hanno introduced new concepts and inspired the students during his daily lectures and 9 members of the Babson community joined us to provide personalized support to each student as they refined their business ideas. The week culminated with a pitch competition where students were given 3 minutes to pitch their businesses to their peers and a panel of judges. The Academy presents an amazing opportunity to inspire youth to become innovators and job creators, while also giving all segments of the Babson community a chance to share their knowledge within the context of a developing economy in the hopes of building up the next generation of the country’s leaders. We look forward to continuing BELA Rwanda and working to develop Rwanda’s future entrepreneurs for years to come.
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OUTCOMES Student survey data, collected from all participants both before and after the Academy, clearly shows how the experience impacts those who participate. Not surprisingly, obtaining resources is consistently identified as the major obstacle to becoming an entrepreneur. However, after the Academy this challenge, and almost every other listed challenge, is perceived as much less daunting than what was initially believed. MORE OF AN OBSTACLE OBTAINING MONEY CAN’T FIND RELIABLE PARTNERS
TOO MUCH COMPETITION
LACK OF EDUCATION
“At first, I thought entrepreneurship was all about starting a business because of famous entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and others. After attending this BELA, my understanding of entrepreneurship changed. It was useful to learn basic topics and knowledge on developing ideas and identifying the needs of our communities and link it to our passions to develop change. I was so inspired by the techniques the teachers used to help us understand. And I have learned that I have all the resources to bring a change in my community now.”
BAHIZI Joseph, 19 years old = BEFORE = AFTER
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STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS At the close of each Academy, we encourage students to continue developing the business ideas that they conceived throughout the week. As an incentive, we offer microloans to BELA students that bring us compelling business plans. Following the completion of BELA in 2011, Jonathan Inyandemye approached us with a great idea to start a computer tutoring business. Over the course of several months, we worked with Jonathan to refine the business idea and distributed our first loan to him in December 2011. We’re pleased to share that Jonathan’s computer tutoring business is profitable and steadily growing. Furthermore, Jonathan has grown his own capability to recognize and exploit opportunities as he has evolved his business model to fill newly observed gaps in the market. This is just a single example of the transformative role that entrepreneurship plays in a developing country such as Rwanda. We are busily working with several students from the 2012 BELA cohort and look forward to supporting them as they launch their businesses.
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BABSON ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP ACADEMY TANZANIA In March 2012, BREC teamed up with Focus on Tanzanian Communities (FoTZC) to offer BELA at the Ganako secondary school in Karatu, Tanzania. FoTZC has been partnering with Tanzanian communities for over 15 years to support education, women’s empowerment, health care, and other sustainable community development initiatives; however this was FoTZC’s first foray into entrepreneurship development. Located in the Arusha region near the famed national park, Ngorogoro Crater, Karatu is a small, but rapidly growing tourist hub with amazing potential and a clear need for more young entrepreneurs. Similar to the academies that we have launched in Ghana and Rwanda, we hosted 80 bright young secondary students from Karatu for a week full of lectures and hands-on activities to help them explore their entrepreneurial capacity. BREC was joined by a team of seven Babson students and 4 volunteers from FotZC who worked intimately with each of the students.
“Stunningly prepared with relentless joyfulness, these hardworking, resourceful students engaged teenage Tanzanians who made strides they had not yet dreamed of. The Babson team helped transform the physical space of Michela’s Room into a budding laboratory of entrepreneurial thinking and action for the community.”
“FoTZC strives to work directly with our partner communites to provide sustainable, long-term solutions to local challenges. The partnership with Babson has enabled us to start training entrepreneurs in Michela’s Room, a dining hall and community center at Ganako Secondary School in Karatu, Tanzania.”
Rick Harriman, Senior Fellow, Synecticsworld, Inc.
Eliza Hatch, Director of Development and Operations, Focus on Tanzanian Communities
Kristen Wainwright Associate, Museum of Fine Arts
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BABSON RWANDA ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATORS NETWORK The first iteration of BELA Rwanda in 2011 was more successful than we could have ever imagined. The students gained a valuable skill set and were inspired to think differently about problem solving. Many of the students went on to start entrepreneurship clubs at their schools to share what they learned and a few students even launched their own businesses. While we were pleased with this impact, we quickly realized that it was limited. The academy is only offered on an annual basis and admits only a small percent of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan students. We wanted to reach a larger number of students in a sustainable fashion. To that end, we began exploring ways to build the capacity of Rwanda’s 3,000 entrepreneurship instructors. The result of our work was the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Educators Network (BREEN), a comprehensive training and support network for Rwandan entrepreneurship instructors. We partnered with the Rwanda Education Board and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to pilot the program in August. 15 teachers from across the country joined our Executive Director as he delivered the curriculum that is modeled after Babson’s famed Symposium for Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE).The program includes several modules that build upon the delivery of the country’s entrepreneurship curriculum through international best practices, a workbook with case studies, and the support of a professional network. We learned a great deal from the pilot and are currently in discussions with our partners to launch the program at scale in 2013.
“The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. You could have a million ideas, but they’re all worthless if you don’t get them done. Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. There is no reason to be hesitant… becoming an entrepreneur is a learning experience.” Florian Rutiyomba, Entrepreneurship education curriculum specialist at Rwanda Education Board
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PARTNERSHIP WITH BENEBIKIRA SISTERS An exciting and evolving partnership with the Benebikira Sisters began when BREC Executive Director, Dennis Hanno, offered Benebikira CFO Sister Augusta Mukarugomoka the opportunity to take Marketing, Organizational Behavior and Accounting courses at Babson College in the Summer of 2010. Since then, Babson has sent students to consult with the Benebikira Sisterhood on new initiatives in Save, Rwanda including the development of a bakery designed to offer work experience and employment to recent graduates of the Immaculate Conception Secondary School and the creation of a business plan for improvements to a dormitory managed by the Sisters. Most notably, Babson began a four week residential program in 2012 in which ten Women’s Leadership Scholars taught classes in Entrepreneurship, Computer Science, and English at the Immaculate Conception Secondary School in Save, Rwanda while learning more about Rwanda’s history and culture. They also held four multi-day workshops at the National University of Rwanda for fifty of the University’s top performers in areas of Entrepreneurship, Career Development, Technology, and English. The team was also able to deliver a number of books to both NUR and the Benebikira Sisters, ensuring that Rwandan students would be able to continue cultivating the lessons of the program. A team will be returning again in Summer 2013.
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SUPPORTING LOCAL BUSINESSES The center has started several projects that leverage Babson’s network and institutional knowledge to support local businesses – helping to develop critical management skills and generate solutions to difficult issues. This year, we continued popular programs from previous years and launched new projects to increase the breadth of our support and overall impact.
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KNOWLEDGE BUILDING WORKSHOPS Knowledge Building Workshops Facebook Group[6]
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Lasting innovation comes from a deep and sustained behavior change – from people doing things differently and approaching problems from new angles. That is why an important part of our direct work with Rwandan businesses focuses on building these changes in mindset. Our second annual Knowledge Building Workshop, a 2-part series for Rwanda’s leading SMEs, did just that. With support from our partner, The Private Sector Federation, we gathered a group of Rwanda’s most promising business owners and managers for engaging sessions on Growth Strategies for Entrepreneurial Firms and Creating Loyal Customers in Times of Uncertainty led respectively by our very own Executive Director, Dennis Hanno, and visiting lecturer, Tom Dewitt, Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. Nearly 50 leaders participated in 2 days of lectures, interactive exercises, and discussions designed to help them explore their own capacity to lead their organizations to sustained growth and profitability. The participants left the workshop with fresh insights and renewed drive to generate lasting impact in their roles.
ADVISORY SERVICES We’ve always envisioned the center working directly with Rwandan owned and operated businesses – helping local firms devise strategies to overcome obstacles to growth. That is why, with great pleasure, we launched a management consulting project. Our partner organization, The Private Sector Federation linked us with Graphic Print Solutions (GPS), a large commercial printer owned by Crystal Ventures Ltd., with the main goal of helping GPS attain lasting market leadership and sustained profits. Over the course of the consulting engagement, we worked alongside GPS’s management team to paint a detailed picture of their competitive landscape and its future trajectory that we utilized to develop a new sales and marketing strategy. The consulting engagement is completed, but we continue to offer support to GPS as they implement our recommendations. We are passionate about working with local firms on their most challenging issues and plan to expand the consulting program in the coming year – increasing the scope of our practice areas and the number of organizations with whom we work.
LINKING LOCAL ARTISTS TO INTERNATIONAL MARKETS Much of the business news coming out of Rwanda focuses on the country’s incredible strides in sectors such as finance and information technology. However, Rwanda is also the home of a small, but growing community of entrepreneurs in the creative industries. We had an incredible opportunity to directly engage this community during the visit of Carolina Fernandez. The mother of a current Babson undergraduate student, Carolina is an accomplished financial advisor and artist. She traveled to Rwanda to assist the Women’s Leadership Program and to offer her unique business acumen to the artistic community. We organized meetings with Rwanda’s top artists where they discussed the status of the creative industries within the country and strategies to grow their businesses. Carolina developed close ties with the artists and even helped some of them refine their business plans. Most impressively, Carolina arranged and hosted galleries in New York and at Babson for two talented painters – exposing their incredible work to markets and building helpful new networks. We are proud to have been a part of this process and look forward to nurturing similar connections and networking opportunities that help Rwandan entrepreneurs grow their ventures.
Happy Anyway: A Sojourner’s Surprising Discovery of the People of Rwanda[7] by Carolina Fernandez July 12, 2012
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THE FUTURE OF BREC While much has been achieved since the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center opened in 2010, even greater impact lies ahead. Our areas of primary focus will be: • Strengthening entreprenurship education • Expanding support services for entrepreneurs • Increasing awareness of the power of entrepreneurship
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ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION One of the main areas of focus for the center is sharing entrepreneurial knowledge. There are a few ways we hope to strengthen this in the center. Babson’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy (BELA) has already taken place in Ghana, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Our hope as the center grows is to expand BELA into an East African regional event bringing Burundi and Kenya into the mix of countries we work with. Our vision is to not only hold the academy in those countries, but to integrate the programs to allow the secondary school students to interact with other potential entrepreneurs their age from neighboring countries. Each academy will occur independently and then a select number of students will come together for an East African Community Academy. In Rwanda specifically, we hope to assist in the strengthening of entrepreneurship education in secondary schools. Rwanda is one of the few countries with compulsory entrepreneurship education at the secondary school level. We hope to integrate the Entrepreneurial Thought and Action teaching methodology into this curriculum by working with trainers and teachers to enhance their knowledge of teaching entrepreneurship, which is a subject that requires its own unique method of teaching. We hope to do this through the BabsonRwanda Entrepreneurship Educator’s Network (BREEN), which will provide both content in the form of training and resources, and a platform for teachers to network and continue their learning beyond the formal trainings. This network is an integral part of the training because it will allow teachers to act as resources to each other.
SUPPORT SERVICES FOR ENTREPRENEURS Also in the realm of entrepreneurship education, we provide consulting services to entrepreneurs at all levels. In the past we have consulted for Crystal Ventures, Ltd providing feedback on the direction of their companies. Building on that, we aim to assist more small and medium sized enterprises, including consulting for businesses in their beginning stages. Additionally, we work with budding entrepreneurs helping them see how they can take their ideas and turn them into actionable plans. BELA alumni have the option of sending their business plans and after careful review and a few rounds of feedback we present them with the opportunity for a small loan to be used towards their business. As funds grow, we intend to expand this loan option to secondary school student entrepreneurship clubs who have business ideas and need some funding to begin to grow their ideas. We also have partnered on many occasions with the School’s Entrepreneurs Network, and intend to build this partnership to provide their entrepreneurs with the option of seed funding as well. This will expand our ability to support many different entrepreneurs as they build their ideas and therefore enabling more individuals or small groups to put into practice the entrepreneurial concepts they learn in their classrooms.
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INCREASE AWARENESS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP Global Entrepreneurship Week has been a huge success here in Rwanda. Over the last two years the campaign has grown from 26 partners hosting 22 events in our first year to 45 partners hosting 50 events in 2012. These events have brought nearly 20,000 participants together to celebrate entrepreneurship in different capacities over the last two year. There is a great deal of potential to expand our efforts, making Rwanda one of the brightest campaigns in Africa. In line with creating a stronger East African Community presence, we aim to build the campaign to integrate a regional event bringing key stakeholders in entrepreneurship together in a forum to discuss building one strong East African entrepreneurial support system. This event would provide networking opportunities as well as a platform to collaborate over key issues in entrepreneurship. We also hope to expand our globally featured events to incorporate more competitions in different fields shedding light on Rwanda at an international level. These events include competitions, entrepreneurship boot camps, and other various dialogues and demonstrations. We aim to send some of the best representatives of Rwanda to international competitions to showcase the incredible potential that Rwanda has.
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WEB LINKS 1
Global Entrepreneurship Week Impact Report
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“The Power of Entrepreneurship” by Faustin Shema
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“Entrepreneurship, An Engine of Development” by Jean Kagame
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“Power of Entrepreneurship” by Denyse Umutoni
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“An African Journey” by John Crawford
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Knowledge Building Workshop Facebook Group
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“Happy Anyway” by Carolina Fernandez
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http://issuu.com/babsonrwanda/docs/gew_impact_report_2012_finalized_copy_singled/1 http://tinyurl.com/ctmede7 http://tinyurl.com/d9vyrzk http://tinyurl.com/claknxy
www.babson.edu/news-events/babson-magazine/fall-2012/pages/african-journey.aspx http://tinyurl.com/knowledgebuildinggroup http://tinyurl.com/CarolinaFernandez
CONTACT INFORMATION Dennis Hanno Executive Director, Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center Dean, F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business Vice Provost, Babson College Babson Park, MA USA 02457 ( 781-239-5660 * dhanno@babson.edu Haya Alzaid Country Director, Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center Private Sector Federation P.O. Box 319 Kigali, Rwanda ( +250 078 714 7516 * halzaid1@babson.edu Rayshawn Whitford Country Director, Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center Private Sector Federation P.O. Box 319 Kigali, Rwanda ( +250 078 714 7518 * rwhitford1@babson.edu
Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center www.babson.edu/brec www.facebook.com/BabsonInRwanda
BREC ANNUAL REPORT 2012
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BREC ANNUAL REPORT 2012
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