“This is an inspiring and beautiful working environment for techies!” said Laurene Job, wife of late Steve Jobs, when she visited kLab las June. Indeed she was right; kLab is such a beautiful place that inspires many to continuously write codes thus creating innovations in the field of software. Opened in June 2012, kLab has been a working place for hundreds of techies; it has also attracted many visitors both locals and internationals as it reflects what is happening on Rwandan tech scene.

“I didn’t know I could do some programming work for Japanese based clients”, says Laurien, a kLab tenant who just got back from Tokyo to do some PHP development consultancy work for a Japanese client. “Through kLab, I was connected to a local company that also linked me to japan-based client,” he concludes smiling. Apart from providing a working space, kLab also detects local talents and source jobs for them. Within 14 months of operation, more than 30 jobs for both international and local clients were created through kLab.

Program like kLab Campus program are being enforced to reach out to brilliant students in high learning institutions. Once identified, kLab partners with training institutions to design customized courses for its tenants thus allowing them to upgrade their skills which they apply in their projects or use while conducting consultancies. “Big thanks to kLab, I just got back from Tanzania to attend a training on iHRIS, an intra-health Human Resource Information System used by the Ministry of Health, “comments Davis. He is part of kLab tenants who benefited from an intense 8 weeks programing course offered by a Carnegie Mellon Professor to kLab. He successfully completed it and was recommended by kLab to attend the training he mentioned after which he is going to be hired by the Ministry of Health as software developer. kLab also partners with multinationals to conduct short courses on new technologies. A few weeks ago, in partnership with Samsung, a 3 days android bootcamp was organized. “The Android training we went through these 3 days was very practical and far better from what we study in class” said Eugene at the end of the bootcamp.

kLab is also a birthplace of innovations and companies. Moussa and Diogene are two young fresh graduates who met at kLab. After building strong synergies they decided to co-create a company, Khenz LTD. Their company is specialized in web applications, currently they are finalizing a product called eTwende which shall allow transportation companies to have real time transactions and maintain a good customer relationship using handheld point of sales. They managed to convince one of the kLab mentors who already bought shares in the company.

Collaboration and openness are two key values highly promoted at kLab, as result, there are many tech communities growing within the space. For instance we have; Girls in ICT, Rwanda Gamers, Rwanda Open Source Community, Rwanda Bloggers and a Multimedia team. All the mentioned groups gather at kLab on a weekly or monthly basis to share knowledge and tips in their respective areas of interests. If you think kLab is your place to be after reading this piece, don’t hesitate to join us. For further information about us, drop us an email via info@klab.rw