Rwanda is Creating a Startup Act to Boost the Tech-driven Industry

• The Rwandan government is the latest on the continent to work on implementing a Startup Act which it hopes would boost the development of the region’s tech-based services industry.
• i4Policy has been central to the development of other African Startup Acts, with a Tunisian act already in place and a Senegalese version soon due to be implemented.
• This is in line with Rwanda’s aim to build a leading startup ecosystem on the content.

The Rwandan government is the latest on the continent to begin working on a Startup Act which it hopes will accelerate the growth of the tech-based services industry in the region.

The objective is to create a leading startup ecosystem on the continent, and the Rwandan government has recruited the Innovation for Policy Foundation (i4Policy) to draft a national Start-up Act for this purpose.

i4Policy has been central to the development of other African Startup Acts, with a Tunisian act already in place and a Senegalese version soon due to be implemented. The foundation’s Jon Stever disclosed that a Startup Act will soon go to parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and related laws and decrees are being explored in almost 20 African countries.

In Rwanda, i4Policy will adopt the regular approach of hosting a Policy Hackathon, The Policy Hackathon is a validated model for involving entrepreneurial communities constructively in the policy-reform discourse, bringing together relevant local entrepreneurs and developers to ensure that their experiences creating and that enterprises shape the Rwanda Startup Act.

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This will be divided into three meetings, with the first being held on Thursday, August 27 as a public webinar to launch the Startup Act and educate the general public about the change plan. The session will be live-streamed on the Facebook account of the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, with registration available here.

A group of 60 founders, customers, and service suppliers will approach the second and third sessions (September 1 and 2). Participants will be chosen from among the public webinar attendees and registrants.

Stever explained the value of a Startup Act and how it was co-created and introduced.

“I don’t think any country needs a Startup Act, but I think all governments could benefit from one,” he said.

“We should think of it as a dialogue between the government and the startups within the ecosystem. The nice thing about a Startup Act is that it is big enough to bring the whole ecosystem together, because everyone has an interest in putting these reforms in place.”

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