Fast-growing companies cannot afford to limit themselves to local talents. We sincerely believe that talent is evenly distributed; opportunity is not. And we believe that successful companies broaden their horizon and use modern technology to gain access to a larger talent pool. Remote work is the future and is well on the way to become the new norm. That is the reason why, after leaving Factory Berlin, we set out to find a solution for the talent shortage in the Berlin startup scene. The vision was to build reliable distributed teams in a location where we could build strong partnerships and where our work has a positive social impact. We were looking for talents that need an opportunity.
Rwanda is aiming to become Africas Tech Hub
Located in Berlin time zone
Same time zone enables 100% time overlap of our remote teams and participation in daily scrum ceremonies.
Growing startup community
Since 2012 a number of investors, incubators and co-working spaces have emerged which provide a vivid ground for the growing tech community.
We first learned about the startup scene in Rwanda in 2018 and were excited about what we heard: A country with the mission to become the tech hub of Africa, in the same time zone as Berlin and with skilled software engineers, few people seemed to know about. Shortly after, we started interviewing software engineers and sent over coding challenges to understand the talent pool better. At the beginning of 2019, we flew to Kigali for the first time to meet startups, universities, and government agents in person and it was amazing what we found: Highly motivated and talented young people who couldn’t wait to launch their startup. We did code review sessions and often thought that we would hire someone immediately - and wondered why we didn’t know about this place. Rwanda's economic strengths are no secret. The country is known for the ease of doing business, high quality of living, and few problems with corruption. Rwanda is located in the same time zone as Berlin, and most people speak English and French fluently, both factors that are substantial assets to build remote teams.
“Talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not”
Leila Janah, CEO Samasource
But on top of that, the country is on a path to become the Singapore of Africa. Between the years 2000 and 2012, the government realized its’ National ICT Plans to lay the foundation and create the infrastructure needed to build a digital economy: Nation-wide fiber-optic internet as a first step and then 4G coverage. After 2012 the country implemented the topic capacity building with full force. This means next to state universities with an astonishingly high standard of education, more and more initiatives, incubators, and co-working spaces emerged. In 2011 the Pan African campus of the Carnegie Mellon University opened its doors and brought ivy league school education to Rwanda. Good examples for this development are startups like Zipline, a company that chose Rwanda as their testing ground for drone delivery. Another is Volkswagen who selected one of our partners to build the prototype for their ride-hailing service. As one of the latest developments, the Norrsken Foundation of Klarna founder Niklas Adalberth is creating an innovation space in Kigali that will serve as a hub for East Africa.
Rwanda
The striving tech hub in Africa
2nd
Rank in Africa for Doing Business
World bank Doing Business Report 2020 analyses regulations that encourage efficiency to do business
90%
4G Coverage
The national territory also boasts affordable broadband access.
6h
To Register Business
You can register your business in less than a day online.
We decided to build a business together with the people we met in Rwanda. We want to combine our long experience as software engineers and CTOs in the Berlin startup scene with the amazing talents we met in Kigali. From the beginning of 2019, we build software together with our partners in Rwanda. Our goals are to deliver great software to our clients, mentor our talents, raise their coding level to the highest standards internationally, and build a business on eye level with our partners.
German Rwandan Tech Network
Bridging between Germany and Rwanda
We decided to build a bridge between the tech ecosystems in Berlin and Rwanda in 2019. We launched the German Rwandan Tech Network, a non-profit initiative to connect tech entrepreneurs in Germany and Rwanda. We are proud to count people like Ramzi Rizk (CTO / Eyem), Elias Atahi (Co-Founder / unu), Uwe Horstmann (Partner / Project A), Juan Vidal (CTO / Dalia Research), Ida Tin (CEO / Clue), Christoph Müller (CTO / Coffecircle), Andrea Peters (MD / medianet berlinbrandenburg), Alain Kajangwe (CEO / WiredIn), Antoine Sebera (Government Chief Innovation Officer / Rwanda), Sangwa Rwabuhihi (Managing Director / Startup House Kigali), Lionel Mpfizi (CEO / Awesomity), Yannick Kabayiza (CTO / Awesomity) among others to the founding members.
