Katumwine was speaking at Bridge2Rwanda luncheon at University of Rwanda’s College of Business and Economics in Kigali on Friday. She recounted her return to Rwanda to get involved in the work being done here.
She said BBOXX also started with a desire to impact the community when its “Three founders who were engineering students from England visited Musanze during their internship while at University and felt compelled to get involved in solving the energy problem not only in Musanze but worldwide. They decided to come up with solar energy solution and that is how BBOXX came of age.”
She urged the 37 including 28 Rwandans and nine from three regional countries to think of what they can do for their communities and consider coming back once they are done with their studies.
“Take advantage of every opportunity you get and be willing to change! That is the main message I want to give you, young people,” she said.
Adhel Geng, one of the students from South Sudan, found Katumwine’s message very inspirational among other lessons she has acquired in the last eight months which made her choose public health as her future career to bring impact in her community, country and the continent.
Rwandan Deogratius Mukuralinda said he has learned that being successful is more of finding solution to problems in the society than accumulating money, saying that he wants to pursue engineering career.
Happiness Uwase, Senior Career Development Advisor at Bridge2Rwanda, said the luncheon was part of their programmes of inviting guests speakers to share about their career journeys and why they chose to work on the continent.
“We invited Monica Keza to share about what made her return to serve in Rwanda. As she said it is for making impact in the community and that is what we teach our students. We also added BBOXX on the list of companies from which we need speakers because it is voicing out what we are teaching our students and has been mentoring our students through internships,” said Uwase.
She said Brigde2Rwanda is hopeful to get scholarships for all the 37 under the programme as it was able to do so 100% for the previous four intakes but strongly focusing on making them return after their studies to make an impact in their respective countries.
BBOXX has provided energy access through solar home systems to over 40,000 households all over the Country and targets to reach 58,000 by end of this year. BBOXX has 26 outlets across the Country and employs over 500 Rwandans to-date.
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