Israel&Rwanda Connect

We were honored to partner with Kigali Innovation Hub, the Israeli Embassy in Rwanda, and Empower Africa for a week of online events connecting the Israeli and the Rwandan ecosystems: Israel&Rwanda Connect.

The first of its kind event was held from the 7th - 11th December 2020 and included a series of virtual sessions focused on learning from the experience and best practices in Israel, exploring the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Rwanda, and promoting connections between entrepreneurs and innovation players in both countries.

The event brought together 35 speakers and over 200 participants from the Rwandan and Israeli innovation ecosystems, including entrepreneurs, tech companies, hubs, incubators, investors, and academia. Speakers from Rwanda included Kigali Innovation City, ICT Chamber, Zipline, DMM Hehe, ARED, CMU-Africa, African Leadership University and Westerwelle Startup Haus, among others. From the Israeli side, speakers included MassChallenge, Netafim, Volcani International Partnerships and HUJI Innovate and our team members. We convened several sessions around innovation, FinTech in Developing countries and introducing the Rwandan ecosystem.

The distinguished speakers uniformly stressed the need for nurturing entrepreneurial mindsets, thinking globally (given that Rwanda, like Israel, is a small market), and building the necessary support systems. They further stressed the importance of openly sharing lessons from failures in an entrepreneurship ecosystem, rewarding courage and creativity, and working together not in silos. Read more about the event here.

We hope to see more collaboration and innovation exchange between Israel and Rwanda.