Paper short abstract:

How is the Kigali startup ecosystem financed and legislated when it comes to Rwanda's international development partners? Who are the key actors helping startups and entrepreneurs to realise not only their ambitions, but the state's ambitions in terms of investment and pan-African entrerpreneurship?

Paper long abstract:

This presentation is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Kigali, Rwanda and Stockholm, Sweden, following the emerging “impact” entrepreneurship ecosystem in Kigali and its influence and support from Swedish actors in the development sector. “Impact” ventures can be defined as startups that address at least one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals but in reality the term itself holds various connotations within the Kigali start-up ecosystem and its actors, such as investors and development agencies. Since 2009, the Rwandan government has fashioned the country as ‘Africa’s first entrepreneurial state’ and a "proof of concept" country (Honeyman, 2016). Rwanda and Sweden have a longstanding cooperation in development, and research and capacity building. Entrepreneurship and innovation appears to be the next "frontier". Policies and legislation in Rwanda for investment, intellectual property, and data protection are being put in place to support the startup ecosystem. How do Rwandan policies towards the "proof of concept" African entrepreneurial state play out on the ground, and do they contribute to the making a pan-African entrepreneurial state? And secondly, what does this mean for transnational collaborations that were previously characterised predominantly by foreign aid and development initiatives? This presentation will draw on ethnographic research with lawyers, startups, and entrepreneurship support organisations and investors working towards making the ecosystem a key element in investment into Rwanda. The presentation will centre around the temporalities of impact, how optimism, particularly Afro-optimism and tech-optimism, is maintained, or compromised, with the life cycles of startups.