12 Women-led Businesses Compete For BK Urumuri Initiative Awards – KT PRESS
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Twelve women-led enterprise homeowners have pitched bankable enterprise concepts that may stand an opportunity to win the eighth version of the BK Urumuri Initiative, which has put aside Rwf25million curiosity free funding this 12 months.
The BK Urumuri Initiative is an annual version organised by the Bank of Kigali (BK) Foundation, in partnership with Inkomoko, with an goal of empowering Rwandan entrepreneurs.
This 12 months, the version got here with a six-month enterprise accelerator programme designed particularly to assist 25 visionary ladies entrepreneurs in Rwanda, underlining the theme for 2024: “Empowering Women Entrepreneurs”.
Out of 25 mission concepts, solely 12 enterprise concepts have been chosen as finalists and have been on November 14th, 2024 given a platform to showcase how their companies will empower Rwandans and contribute to its financial progress.
Five winners can be chosen within the upcoming grande finale which can witness winners strolling away with curiosity free loans (between Rwf4million and Rwf6million) from the Bank of Kigali Plc with a three- 12 months reimbursement interval.
The 12 enterprise concepts are in varied fields together with; agriculture and agro-processing (fortified meals and chili pepper amongst others), deaf and dumb translation service, hygiene and sanitation, waste administration, ornament, animal feed processing, and vogue designing amongst others.
Before the jury, the opponents confirmed the judges how their mission works, the place it really works, a advertising and marketing plan and the way sustainable the enterprise may be but additionally its influence to the financial system.
The 5 finalists (to be chosen) can be introduced in two-weeks’ time from now. They can be awared underneath the three pillars of BK Foundation-which embrace; schooling, innovation and environmental safety.
Helle Dahl Rasmussen, Director of Business Growth Services at Inkomoko, informed the contestants that these whose initiatives will fail shouldn’t be discouraged, however use their expertise as a great alternative to be motivated to do higher.
“Keep going if it does not work out now, it will the next time. Don’t give up, keep putting in efforts. You have good projects, each of you has a good project, someday you will get benefits, keep working and don’t get discouraged, and we will continue to help you in your journey, we are with you .” Rasmussen mentioned.
The administration of BK Foundation says that empowering Rwandan ladies entrepreneur in improvement actions is often a key think about its mission, which is without doubt one of the the explanation why, this 12 months, they paid extra consideration to ladies’s enterprise improvement to be able to influence on the neighborhood in an pressing method.
Pascal Nkurunziza, the Programs Manager Director at BK Foundation, mentioned that this 12 months’s competitors targeted on women-led initiatives solely, to make the ladies entrepreneurs extra daring and self-sustainable.
“This year, I would like to say that this was the main goal of the BK Foundation, to encourage women to compete equally as their male counterparts. This is the vision of the BK Foundation and it is not just this year, because we will continue doing so,” Nkurunziza mentioned.
BK Urumuri Initiative, which began in 2017, is a program that was launched in 2017, when the Bank of Kigali celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, with the goal of serving to younger entrepreneurs develop their initiatives that may end up in robust enterprise sooner or later.
BK Urumuri is without doubt one of the initiatives supported by the BK Foundation and has since supplied curiosity free loans to start-ups (greater than 55 entrepreneurs, together with 31 ladies) amounting to greater than Rwf234.5million.
