On Thursday 27 August 2020, The Ministry of ICT and Innovation held an online consultative meeting on the development of Rwanda Startup Act. The webinar that was open for all, brought together entrepreneurs, stakeholders and interested members of the public.

The Government of Rwanda hosted the modified virtual Policy Hackathon to engage the Rwandan startup community in co-creating policy recommendations.

Delivering his opening remarks, Mr. Yves Iradukunda; The Permanent Secretary of MINICT stressed on the importance of the meeting and said “I hope you understand this Startup Act is a dialogue and through this Policy Hackathon, we can elevate the collective intelligence of our community to capitalize on this progress to build an even stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem, empower Rwandan youth to create more jobs and local innovations, and to attract even more global capital.”

The Policy Hackathon is a proven format for engaging entrepreneurial ecosystems constructively in policy reform dialogue.

It has brought together important local founders and investors to ensure that the Startup Act is informed by their lived experiences building and growing businesses. The today’s session was one of three planned sessions:

Session 1: Public Webinar

It was open for all. The purpose of this session is to share the objective to co-create a Startup Act, and to provide the community with constructive opportunities for engagement.

Session 2 & 3: Co-Creation Sessions; planned in September 2020

The second and third sessions will target a cohort of sixty entrepreneurs, investors and service providers. Participants will be selected from amongst the attendees and registrants of the public webinar.