President Kagame, UNDP’s Ahunna Eziakonwa and other officials pose for a photo with the first cohort of 40 young entrepreneurs who will be part of the Timbuktoo Health Tech Hub. Photos/Urugwiro Village.
The African continent can not keep talking about the untapped ‘potential’ for economic transformation for decades but rather the focus should now be on unleashing that potential to its full realisation.
This is what President Paul Kagame observed at the launch of the Timbuktoo Health Tech Hub on the second day of the Youth Connekt Africa Summit, where the first cohort of 40 young entrepreneurs participating in the pan-African accelerator programme were unveiled.
The initiative which is supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is designed to address the gaps in early-stage risk capital, aiming to grow global–class startups and unlock the one-Africa market. President Kagame, who played a role in the fruition of the programme told the youth to take advantage of their young age to achieve more.
The Head of State said that at all age milestones, there is always something one wants to achieve and after each decade, you feel like there is a lot more you can do, but what is more important is to take advantage of the youthful years to pursue the goals and ambitions one has, albeit with a sense of precaution and responsibility.
“When I was 40, I was actually thinking of maybe doing something and then retiring. Then I became 50, I found there was more to do than retiring, went to 60, the same story. Now I’m about to be 70 in a few years, so I think there is still some work to do,” President Kagame said.
President Kagame, UNDP’s Ahunna Eziakonwa and Minister of Health, Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana at the launch event.
“But we can keep changing ideas and places and where we operate from. But if I retire, still I will have something to do, at least I am going to be a cheerleader for those upcoming young people who are doing different things, and giving them a bit of advice here and there and reminding them to be a little careful about this, about that,” he added.
President Kagame said that while it is important to be daring and ambitious, it is important that the youth know their limitations and act accordingly, to avoid setbacks and also to understand the different challenges they have to tackle.
“You know, when you are still very young, you feel like you can do anything. You can climb a mountain and they tell you to jump and you can fly without a parachute, you think you can do that. We went through that,” he said, referencing his own experience.
“There was a time you felt you could. But as you grow you start making sense of all these things and want to be a little more careful and then looking at what you’re doing and where you are headed, making sense of all that.” President Kagame, adding that when he gets to 70 soon and ponders retirement, his job will be to advise young people on what they need to do or not.
President Kagame called for more efforts to support young people.
“When I retire, I’m going to be a cheerleader for the upcoming young people who are doing different things, giving them a bit of advice here and there, reminding them to be a little careful about this and that. You know, when you are young, you feel like you can do anything,” President Kagame said.
President Kagame recognised the role of UNDP and other partners who have made the Timbuktoo initiative a reality, pointing out that today the initiative which aims to foster startups developing groundbreaking solutions in deep tech, hardware, and advanced technologies, is up and running.
“It’s no longer a dream or an idea. It’s there, it’s working. We have to put in more energy and resources and ideas to scale it up to reach wherever we intend it to reach to, in terms of benefiting from the meaning it carries with it,” – President Kagame said, encouraging young people to take advantage of the hub with a mission to unlock the one-Africa market.
“With the young people, whom we have bigger numbers than any other continent in this world, I think we can reverse this kind of trend. We can’t be an African continent, or we can’t be Africans, proud people with values, culture, and not leverage that. The diversity in our continent is in itself a huge resource,” President Kagame said.
He observed that Africa has what it takes to leverage its full potential but it is about time the continent moved from talking about potential to realising it in real terms.
“We are as capable, if not even more, as anyone else anywhere. So why not Use this, which we always refer to as potential. We can’t keep talking about potential for decades or centuries. Remember when we were entering this century, they said this is Africa’s century, but which one was not ours?” he wondered.
The Head of State said that each century has been Africa’s but it often passes but if the young people take up the mantle, the potential can be turned into a reality and initiatives like Timbuktoo will go a long way in supporting young people to achieve their ambitions.
Ahunna Eziakonwa, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Assistant Administrator and Director of Regional Bureau for Africa, congratulated the 40 young innovators who were announced as the first cohort of the Timbuktoo Africa
HealthTech Startup Accelerator programme, urging them to go and be the difference the African continent wants to see.
She said that the Timbuktoo initiative was launched less than a year ago but the Rwanda hub is already the second of 10 tech hubs that the programme will establish on the African continent.
“It says one thing; that we mean business,” Eziakonwa said, adding that they have already set university innovation ports in 13 African countries with the aim of involving academia into the innovative industry.
“Research and development is critical for creating the future that we want and our universities have been largely left out. So the University Innovation ports are a critical part of the story and 13 are already installed within that period. Our promise is to have 17 in 17 countries launched by the end of this year and four of the 10 Tech Hubs launched by the beginning of next year,” Eziakonwa said.
The new hub will provide Rwandan innovators with a collaborative platform to design, develop, and scale impactful solutions that elevate healthcare outcomes, not only in Rwanda but on the African continent. The launch of the Health Tech Hub in Rwanda follows the launch of the Fintech Lagos hub which opened in July, while the Climate Tech Hub will be launched on the 9th of December.
