Rwanda builds small "Silicon Valley" as a free start-up base for young people

The streets of Rwanda. In a hilltop building in the Rwandan capital Kigali, a group of young people are playing foosball on the balcony, on the other side of a few glass doors, a brightly lit room with a small crowd sitting around a laptop computer. This is Klab, an open venture base in Rwanda. Young people with business dreams can enjoy free Wi-Fi, free work space, and guidance from university professors and business leaders. klab-, a laboratory of knowledge, was funded by the Rwandan Association of Private Enterprises, the Rwanda Development Council and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which has been in operation for more than a year, but this week it was officially inaugurated. Innovation Center Nurturing Adventurer Knowledge Laboratory is a research and innovation center, young graduates here mainly engaged in High-tech industry projects, "Klab's general manager Gevani Tabugoba in the initiation ceremony." To date, Klab has 85 members and has received guidance from 21 advisers. The current membership includes 11 start-ups that are already selling products or services on the market and are making small profits without the strength to form an independent office. The culture we advocate is cooperation, but cooperation is not enough, where you will be able to accept the best entrepreneurial guidance in Rwanda. "Ntabgoba (Tabugoba) said. Compared to other information centers in this area, I want you to understand the uniqueness of Klab: You are in it, but not the only one. He gave a speech at Klab's initiation ceremony, pointing out that his university was not on the first floor of Klab, and that it was surrounded by many IT companies. Look over there and you'll say ' I have a lot of entrepreneurs, world-class universities, it and IT infrastructure '. In my opinion, it's like a small Silicon Valley. "The only thing we lack is a venture capitalist-that's what we're looking for, and we're looking for a patron who is willing to give money to help you start your own adventures," Bates continued. "Venture base Klab. Knowledge Change Society Some of the Klab-assisted startups have already made some success, such as Gira ICT, which allows African customers to buy smartphones, laptops and tablets on instalments. Another successful representative is Foyo, a mobile health applications company that sends health and dietary information to customers with diseases such as diabetes through a mobile phone message service. We also have a large project called Textit, which is shared by consultants and members, by creating an information platform that enables people who have no background in programming knowledge to create SMS applications (SMS) programs. "Other success stories come from the two national Programming marathon, hosted by the center. The first competition was called "hacking anti-corruption", organized jointly by the Goodwill random Hacker "organization and Transparency International", which attracted 60 participants. They wanted to see which information and communication technologies were used to effectively deter and prevent corruption. We've designed several kinds of comparisonsMature programming prototypes, and are expected to devote a portion of them to practical applications. "Tabugoba introduced. The second programming marathon was just held recently to provide a solution for promoting agricultural development. Finally the winning team invented a system based on the Aduino microcontroller, which can be used to test soil fertility and provide advice on how to solve soil nutrient loss. It also feeds data back to a national database through a radio connection, in which the soil fertility of every field in the country can be recorded and mapped into a soil fertility map. The winners will then join the other winning teams from East Africa to compete in the regional finals in Klab.