I recently moved to Kigali and want to learn about what is happening here. Part of my interest has been piqued by what is going on at kLab. I happened to stop in during a session where tenants were presenting their projects, and they all seemed related to traffic apps.

Later I came to realize I was seated in one of kLab open events called Meet the Market. An event that brings together Applications developers (Mobile or Web) plus final year university students' IT dissertation projects and link them with targeted end users and potential investors to facilitate them bring to reality and commercialize their project ideas. it's a series of events run by sector, the day I visited, kLab tenants were showcasing applications that can help The Rwanda National Police to improve its service to the people.

It was interesting to see the different projects being worked on. There was a wide range as far as where each person was on their project; some were just preliminary ideas, while some had working parts to demonstrate. One of the best aspects of the session was that the audience included policemen, who are a perfect group to provide real-world feedback on these types of apps. They were very interested to see how the apps would be used. The policemen asked very good questions and seemed to understand the ways in which technology would be helpful in their field. Including the non-technical perspective in these types of technical discussions is a great approach and I was very impressed to see it.

Another aspect I found very interesting was to see the types of problems that are being solved. Not only was there discussion of the immediate problem - how to take your driver's exam or how to pay your ticket fines, but there was also a focus on solving more wide-spread issues around how "things are done" in Rwanda. For instance, one presenter focused on the problem of how long everything takes. He described a system where a person must make many different trips to many different places, sometimes repeating visits when not everything was in order, to simply pay a traffic ticket. This can take a person days of effort; part of the problem he wants to solve is to speed up the process and save the unnecessary time it takes for completing every-day tasks, like paying traffic fines. This is not only a solution to a technical problem, but a change in mindset for the culture in Kigali - another impressive aspect for me to see being discussed and addressed with ITC.

As a software engineer who believes that design and thinking beyond technology are just as important as the solution itself, this session was very encouraging for me to see. Altogether this was a very interesting first glance at what is going on at kLab and I am looking forward to learning more about kLab, Kigali, and Rwanda.