Innovative African university graduates have developed many new tech products in recent
years, but they prefer to work in Western countries where there is more support — and more room for failure, ThinkAfricaPress reports.

Creating the right environments and keeping Africa’s youngest and brightest will be key to Africa’s development in science and technology, according to a forum held in March in Kigali. World Bank and the Rwandan government co-hosted the forum, entitled “Accelerating Africa’s Aspirations.”

In Western countries, “loans are cheaper,” said Akaliza Gara, a Rwandan tech entrepreneur and youth member of Microsoft’s 4Afrika advisory council. “There is financial support for the unemployed, and failing in a business venture is more culturally acceptable.”

To get the most from its innovators, African countries need to cultivate similar
settings, according to the ThinkAfricaPress report. “In order to inspire even more African
graduates to innovate, we need to create spaces where failure is obviously not encouraged, but is safe,” said Tawhid Nawaz, World Bank’s director of human development, speaking at the forum. “Spaces like kLab (an open space for tech innovation and entrepreneurship in Rwanda), where ideas can grow and be nurtured — where you can make mistakes and learn from them.”

Clarisse Iribagiza, a world-renowned Rwandan innovator and founder of the mobile app company HeHe Limited, said trial and error is one of the most important elements of success fortech businesses.

“We need to experiment more and learn by doing,” she said. “Fail quickly and learn quickly. People are too afraid to try new things.”

Iribagiza advocated for a more hands-on approach in teaching STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) that focuses more, she said, on practice than on theory.