“If your plan is for 1 year, plant rice.
If your plan is for 10 years, plant trees.
If your plan is for 100 years, educate children.”

Hills Connect is amazingly doing all of them at the same time!
After co-organising the Rwanda Business Forum in Finland September 2023, the
planning of the equivalent event in Rwanda ensued. The event evolved into a 3-day Nordic
Rwanda Forum with focus on Business & Investments, Education & Research and Culture on the
respective days, which unfolded last week, 3rd-6th April, in Kigali. These 3 areas are the basis for
any society to thrive and flourish.

It has been a journey bringing it to life, coordinating efforts in the 5 Nordic countries and
stakeholders back home in Rwanda. Nearly 60 leaders representing 11 universities and 22
companies from the Nordics gathered in Kigali to debate, connect, share experience and forge
partnerships with the Rwandan counterparts. together nearly 300 participants and 8 MoUs
signed, witnessed by Rwanda Minister of Education Joseph Nsengimana and Vice-Chancellor of university of Rwanda (UR) Prof. Didas Muganga Kayihura.

Of course, as one African proverb says: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go
together”, we wouldn’t have made it this far without the amazing partners like Amb Diane
Gashumba, Chantal Dusaidi of The Embassy of Rwanda to the Nordics, Pierre Jallow,
Bolaji Akerele of Remode Oy, and locally Rwanda Development Board (RDB), University of
Rwanda, Catholic University of Rwanda (CUR), and INES Ruhengeri. Our own Senior
Associate, likewise, CEO of Yomonitor Oy Robert Ngenzi, run all the panels as a moderator on
the Education Day.

We are happy to have played a role in the developed and concluded partnerships, -which is one of
our stated strategic objectives of bridging the opportunities-, and the continued role we will have in
the implementations, which correspond to our facilitation objective.

Amb Diane Gashumba (Rwanda to Nordics), Amb Theresa Zitting (Finland to Rwanda)and
Amb Dag Sjöögren (Sweden to Rwanda) gave insights in economic and education diplomacy.
with impact in Rwanda at hand.
On the Business and Investments Day, Rwanda Development Board’s Chief Investment Officer
Michelle Umurungi, Private Sector Federation (PSF) CEO Stephen Ruzibiza and Rwanda
Finance Limited CEO Nick Barigye immersed the participants with the conducive Rwandan
business environment with special focus on facilities given to companies establishing themselves
in Rwanda and the strategic gains they get by locating in Rwanda, the gateway to East Africa.
On the Education & Research Day, topics of discussion centred around the fields mentioned below.
on all levels starting from policymaking, Research, Development & Innovation, and
Implementation, and presentation & discussion of ongoing projects or conclusions of new
partnerships.
Participants got immersed in education policy from Annika Sundbäck-Lindroos of Finnish
National Agency for Education (EDUFI), Dr Edward Kadozi, DG Rwanda Higher Education
Council (HEC) and Dr. Sylvie Mucyo, Vice-Chancellor, Rwanda Polytechnic.

Many impactful projects under innovative and complex partnership forms were presented. The list
is exhaustive to be presented here, just mentioning the flagship project Higher Education
Pedagogies for Teacher Education presented by Prof. Sai Väyrynen. The key success word is
CO-CREATION

The presented cases were as wide as per the below fields:

1. Paramedics
2. Early Childhood Development & Education
3. Food processing
4. Teacher Education Development
5. Applied maths simulations
6. Nursing education simulations
7. Inclusive, digital rehabilitation
8. Renewable energy applied education
9. Industrial automation technology
10. Agricultural Sciences

Thereof covering all the advised 1 year, 10-year, and 100-years plans by Confucius mentioned at
the beginning of this post.

Based on our experience in supporting partnerships for under the Higher Education Programme of
the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we have also been able to facilitate partnerships for the
Team Finland Knowledge fund under the same ministry and now also supporting initiatives under
the EU Gateway program Regional Teacher Initiative for Africa – Facility Window 1: Demand
driven technical assistance and Facility Window 3: Research and production of knowledge on
teacher issues, and the EU Team Europe Initiative: Opportunity-driven Skills and VET in Africa
(OP-VET).

We will continue to support initiatives to translate policy into practice for societal socioeconomic
development, unlocking partnerships building for wider ecosystems and in that way giving back to
community, thus uplifting others.

Stay tuned, our mission to unleash the power of collaboration continues!