"Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Rwanda”

Digital Opportunity Trust Rwanda (DOT Rwanda) will be launched in the land of a thousand hills in March 2010. The funding was received from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).  Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Rwanda (E2DR) is a three year project to demonstrate DOT’s ReachUp! and StartUp! programs.  The goal of E2DR project is to contribute to the economic, social and human capacity in Rwanda by applying technology utilization provided by the DOT Program. DOT Rwanda will be contributing directly to the rural economic transformation and human capacity development goals as expressed in Rwanda’s ambitious but achievable Vision 2020.  The beneficiaries of these programs are the youth, women and rural micro enterprises.

The Pilot Programme in Rwanda is the DOT Rwanda ReachUp!.  This is a community based capacity building programme that recruits university and college graduates to promote entrepreneurship in selected communities.  The goal for this program is to generate sustainable livelihoods ideas, promote community projects and build a foundation of basic ICT and Business skills.  Fifteen talented young Rwandan women and men “Interns” will be trained and deployed in the 15 selected communities within DOT Rwanda’s Partners community for a period of nine months.  E2DR will run two cycles of 15 Interns and will reach over 3000 community beneficiaries.