Coming Home

Goodbye to Rwanda (Kigali Airport)

(SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

By Gale Wiley

Kigali, Rwanda – Rice MBAs who came to this African capital to commercialize biomedical technology are returning home this week with more than firsthand knowledge about commercializing biomedical technology in a developing country.

For starters, students have learned that Rwandans are a proud and gentle people who are zooming into the 21st century -- in part through outside aide, in part through dogged determination, education and hard work.

Rwanda is well organized, largely through the efforts of the country’s government, whose leadership is dominated by women who fill the gap left by men killed during the genocide. Fully 80 percent of the legislature is female.

New and Old

Kigali is a bustling, beautiful city of a thousand hills with perfect California climate. The traffic circles contain well-manicured gardens. The views from hilltop to hilltop are breathtaking.

During rush hour, Rwandans wedge themselves into mini-vans that serve as taxis. Braver souls hire mo-ped taxis piloted by helmet-wearing cowboy drivers who lean on their horns as much as their accelerators.

Kigali is booming. Everywhere there is movement. At rush hour in Kigali, throngs crowd the markets and taxi stands where scores of mini vans and mo-peds wait.

Rush hour in Kigali's mass transit hub

The well dressed employed and the ragged jobless – many talking into cell phones -- walk side by side.

In the city center you can buy low quality electronic goods and pirated CDs. A huge, enclosed market on the edge of town is like the Rwandan version of WalMart, except here you get to bargain with vendors.

Rwanda has a long way to go, however, before all of its citizens are afforded the same access as Kigalians have to electricity and clean water and centralized sewage systems. In rural Rwanda, mud brick huts that do not meet minimum standards are being condemned by the government and replaced with higher quality structures.

China has landed big contracts to add and improve roads throughout the country. Germany has built a huge mountain-top solar array.

Everyone here talks of the years before and after 1994, the year of the genocide when as many as 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered at the hands of Hutus.

The genocide happened 15 years ago, and memorials to the Tutsis are scattered through this tiny country. Hardly a person you meet doesn’t have a story about losing relatives to death during the genocide.

Press Freedom?

Rwanda’s television programming is mostly soccer clips, Rwandan music videos, and rosy interviews with government ministers and President Paul Kagame.

“Government here doesn’t air bad news,” said one young reporter who had been fired from Rwanda’s only government-controlled TV station. “Reporters who want to gather views opposite the government’s are let go.”

Unemployment

The government hires as many as people as it can, but the crush of immigrants from the countryside and neighboring countries puts pressure on an economy that is largely agricultural.
Rwanda, quite simply, needs jobs that bring value to the Rwandan economy.

Thousands of young men walk the streets here looking for work. During the day they sit in groups or prowl the city centers. In the district where huge bags of flour and sugar and consumer goods are unloaded, one thin young man yelled to me, “I’m hungry. Give me money.”

Awash with Churches and “NGO-how”

By some estimates, more than a thousand churches and nearly 300 non-governmental agencies (NGOs) work in Rwanda, providing aid, equipment, training, and what some call “NGO-how.”
Rwanda, not surprisingly, is largely Protestant. Again and again, Rwandans would say to us, “Like us, Americans are Christian.”

Like South Africa, Rwanda used the process of reconciliation to allow Tutsi victims to confront and forgive their tormentors. Although some religious leaders in the 1990’s failed Rwandans during the genocide by falling silent during the persecution and the subsequent slaughter of more than 800,000 Tutsis, still other clerics spoke up for or protected Tutsis.

Tourism

Tourists see gorillas "up close and personal"

Tourists to Rwanda come in several flavors: those who want to see the genocide memorials and the gorillas ($500 cash for a permit), those who are connected with churches and NGOs (you see these folks at the best restaurants or riding in Toyota SUVs with African drivers), and those who are simply travelers curious about Rwanda (by far the smallest group).

“Tom Cruise”

The hope for Rwanda is in the young who put in long hours at school and who pay to hear local rapper Tom Close (Rwandans say “Tom Cruise”) at live concerts.

We met the son of a seamstress who started a business with micro-finance money seeded by an American NGO.

He has big plans to grow Rwanda’s fledgling tourist industry.

“We’re building a Web site for my mother’s shop,” he said speaking perfect American English. “You will be able to order her handmade custom made shirts online. We have big plans.”

Students' route home
Kigali-Nairobi-London-Houston
36 Hours, door-to-door

Five MBAs and a Baby

Friday, March 6, 2009

by Gale Wiley

Kilgali, Rwanda -- A tiny preemie was moved from a $20,000 incubator to a $300 Rwandan-built incubator designed by Rice engineers and marketed for the last week in this tiny country by Rice MBAs.

The child, dubbed "Baby Kigali " by the five-man Rice team, spent the night in the prototype incubator which represents the first of a potential production of as many as 900 incubators for the Rwandan market alone.

"Baby Kigali" in the Rice Incubator

Thousands more incubators -- all made by local manufacturers -- could be sold across Africa and other developing countries.

"But there's lots of work to do yet," said one team member. "The incubator needs to be thoroughly tested by the Rwandan certification agency. Doctors and nurses already asked for design modifications they'd like to see."

Four Teams

The MBA students came to Rwanda as part of Marc Epstein's class to study firsthand how to bring Rice bio-med technology to Rwanda, if possible using Rwanda labor and management to create and sell those products.

The students divided into four five-person teams and were tasked with developing a viable business plan for a specific product.

The students are developing business plans for three prototype products that were tested in African clinics and hospitals last summer by undergraduate interns that were part of Rice’s Beyond Traditional Borders program.

The teams are organized by product -- the low-cost neonatal incubator team, a diagnostic lab-in-a-backpack team, a plastic dosing device for liquid medicines team, and micro-nutrient supplements.

For five days the students worked day and night, meeting with doctors, nurses and Rwandan health officials in clinics and hospitals across Rwanda.

The incubator team spent much of its energy getting their incubator built using Rwandan materials and craftsmen.

The backpack team has a commitment from an NGO for 80 backpacks. Medical officials in Rwanda expressed interest in backpacks that could be tailored for specific needs and diseases.

The 20 students return Stateside next week, many of them flying out Wednesday.

Rwandans Unveil Protoype Incubator

Thursday, March 5, 2009

by Gale Wiley

Kigali, Rwanda -- It was big day for Rwandan carpenters who built a low-cost, wooden incubator following design specs of Rice MBAs who traveled here as part of a technology commercialization class to bring simple, low-cost, bio-med products to developing countries.

Rice MBAs are using their business acumen to develop third world markets, pricing, and distribution channels for products designed by Rice bio engineers.

Rice University Bioengineering Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum accompanied the incubator team to a furniture co-op where Rwandan workers unveiled their incubator prototype.

Richards-Kortum and Marc Epstein, a professor with the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, teamed up to give Rice MBAs the chance to promote bio-technology products to Rwanda.

The Rwandans used no electric tools to make the incubator.

Although the incubator is made of wood, it will serve as a demonstration model that students can show to clinics in rural Rwanda.

"This is a low-cost incubator made by Rwandans for Rwandans,," said Rice MBA incubator team member Jess Arnold. "This model is a start. We can always modify the incubator down the line. We wanted to create a product that Rwandans could build themselves."

The incubator team estimates that there is a market for as many as 900 incubators in rural Rwandan clinics.

The Rice MBAs paid the carpenters by collecting $500 in donations during a Super Bowl party.

Backpack team scores

The backpack team met with Access Project, an NGO that could not hide its enthusiasm for the product.

The backpack, called a "lab in a backpack" by Rice students, holds medical diagnostic equipment. Using Rice undergraduates, Richards-Kortum has sent 12 backpacks for testing in third world countries.

Access Project, with the assistance of the Rice MBAs, immediately began work on a proposal to raise funds to purchase 80 backpacks.

The NGO requested that Rice team visit Bugasera, another rural hospital, Thursday to demonstrate the backpack to NGO colleagues.

###

Rice MBAs Find Markets for Their Products

Incubators are expensive, requiring expensive repair and maintenance.

by Gale Wiley

Wednesday, March 5, 2009

Teams spread out to the countryside today to see rural Rwandan clinics and hospitals firsthand. Other teams met with government officials, suppliers, contractors, and an agency that certifies medical products and drugs.

As the incubator team learned that its Rwandan-built prototype would be ready Thursday, they bought electrical supplies (four light bulbs, sockets, wiring, and switches) on the local economy to create the incubator's simple heating circuitry. In their hotel, students crafted a crude test circuit (it worked!) and a final circuit for delivery to the Rwandan craftsmen Thursday morning.

Health workers at rural clinics say they need a cheap, easy-to-repair, locally made incubator. Some said they would place orders once they saw a working prototype.

"We hope to create jobs for Rwandans with our product," said an incubator team member. "A locally supplied incubator that's easy to repair has high interest here."

The backpack team faced tough grilling from a government medical official who wanted to know why Rwanda would need a diagnostic lab in a backpack when the country already had lab facilities scattered strategically through Rwanda. The remained confident they would find a market niche for their product, a belief that was supported Wednesday night when two NGOs expressed strong interest in the backpack.

Thursday the backpack team was asked to demo their product.

The dosing device and nutrient powder teams continue to meet with officials and medical experts at every level. Wednesday night the dosing team learned that at least one hospital administrator saw great potential for a device that would give precise doses.

Using Rwandan Labor to Build Incubators

Furniture Makers

It has been a whirlwind from the moment we got here. Feelings awake here: hope, sorrow, fascination, guilt, awe. Rwanda is an amazing and grand place.

Above all are the people — so sweet and kind and alive. They are building a country from the devastation of genocide.

Everywhere the Rice MBA teams go, there are children. Last night as we drove in from the country, it was 5 p.m. when children get out of school. Dressed in blue and yellow uniforms, the children would wave to us, grinning broadly, shouting, “Masungo!” which means "White man." It is a cry of excitement and cheer. There is no derision. The children seem delighted to see us.

I followed the incubator team today.

We began with the furniture makers, a co-op where hundreds of men make furniture and coffins -- among other things -- in the narrow canyons of dressers and beds. They use crude tools -- I saw no electric saws or drills -- to make mortise joints and carved pieces. They are masters with planes and hammers and awls. Young couples buying their first piece of furniture snake their way through down the narrow aisles as workers hammer and saw and carry pieces to the street for customers.

The furniture makers are crafting a model of the Rice incubator, a simple wooden box with a simple electric circuit for standard light bulbs. Although getting a local contractor to make a prototype seems like a minor thing, for the incubator team this is a major victory, the first step in using local craftsmen to produce a product set for sale in Rwanda.

The unit should be ready Thursday. On Wednesday the incubator team will finalize the electronics and deliver the wires, bulbs, and sockets to the furniture makers. On Friday, they hope to have a working model to show hospital administrators.

Rwanda’s medical system is made of local clinics, regional hospitals, and the national King Faisal Hospital. Clinics serve as a form of triage, handling relatively minor medical and nutritional problems -- and births. Cases clinics can’t handle are forwarded to regional hospitals. And what regional hospitals can’t treat is forwarded to King Faisal Hospital.

District hospitals and local clinics appear to be markets for the diagnostic lab in a backpack, the low-cost incubator and bilirubin light, the protein powder, and the dosage metering device.

Two expectant mothers at a rural clinic in Rwanda

Teams have also learned that all products sold to hospitals in Rwanda must be approved by a national certification agency, a process that may take longer than the time students are in country.

Every team is hopeful. Each has found avenues for development. In the short time they are here, it is unlikely they will launch complete businesses. But some teams have already found partners, local builders, and entrepreneurs with the training and expertise to run a business.

Note: Internet bandwidth is poor. Think of thousands of computers trying to suck data through one straw. It's almost impossible to upload videos to you, but I will continue to look for better connections.

The Apprentice Comes to Rwanda

[See newly uploaded video below!]

by Gale Wiley

Well, today (Monday) was the first day of what will be five incredibly busy days for our four MBA teams, each one trying to figure out ways to commercialize its Rice bio-med product in Rwanda.

We began at King Faisal Hospital, the national hospital of Rwanda. We were briefed on how the government makes its buying decisions, how very little is actually manufactured in Rwanda, how distribution to the countryside is a major problem, how building infrastructure (roads, internet, water, electricity) is a top priority in Rwanda's plan to grow the country's economy.

The students toured the hospital and made product pitches to top medical officials.

In the afternoon teams were given free rein to pursue leads, conduct interviews, and find suppliers.

We draw a crowd

I followed the incubator team who decided they needed to build a life-sized model of their product using Rwandan supplies and labor.

Our driver took us to the furniture district where the team located a cooperative that produces bed frames, clothes closets, trunks, and caskets.

Within minutes after we pulled up next to the co-op, scores of Rwandans closed around us, me with my camera videotaping the incubator team as they worked through specifications for the incubator with Rwandan craftsmen.



I felt like a cameraman for the Rwandan version of The Apprentice.

Tomorrow some of the teams venture out to the countryside to visit district hospitals, a key market for the backpack, the incubator, the dosing device, and the protein supplement.

Sunday in Rwanda

Children's Dance Troupe

by Gale Wiley

Sunday was an emotional roller coaster.

We began the day with rain beating on the roof of Cathedrale St. Ettrenne as we watched an Episcopalian (not Anglican as I reported earlier) service. A choir of young people (drum, electric piano, and guitar) sang hymns in African harmonies. The text of hymns were displayed for the congregation in PowerPoint slides high up on a wall behind the priest.

Holiness, holiness is what I long for
Holiness is what I need
Holiness , holiness is what you want to give to me…

Next we visited the Kigali Genocide Museum.

Imagine your neighbor whom you've known for years suddenly knocking on your door. He carries a machete. His intention is to kill you and your family. Imagine this scene and mass killings sprouting up around the country. This was the story in 1994 when the Hutus slaughtered between 800,000 and a million Tutsis.

The genocide museum like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is not for the faint of heart. You begin with the early divisions and hatreds between the tribes, the effect of colonialists, the brutal power struggles between the tribes, the slaughter, and now 15 years later and a long period of reconciliation, relative peace.

The museum is well worth the visit.

In the afternoon we dropped in on the Rwamakondera Children’s Dance Troupe where children performed tribal dances, following the tradition of each dancer soloing to hypnotic drums and chants.

In the evening we had dinner with Dan and Campbell Vogel who work with Bridge2Rawanda and who are helping teams make contact with Rwanda government officials.

On Monday teams with Rwanda ministry officials and begin their work, making contact with NGOs, hospitals, manufacturers, and suppliers.