Also being exhibited are R&D products produced by NIRDA Staff, including those already transferred to private companies for large scale production and commercialization.

The event took place at NIRDA’s Research Centre located in Huye District.

Young innovators had innovative ideas, which were incubated in NIRDA Life Sciences Laboratory and turned into prototypes, Products and by-products rotating around the cow value chain addition.

Products include cow dung briquette producing machines, Cow Safe ear tag for among others detecting cow diseases & Welfare, eco-friendly cook stoves, cow blood sausages, cow urines and cow dung fertilizers, cow dung briquette cow.

Speaking during the event, Richard Niwenshuti, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, and Industry (MINICOM) hailed NIRDA for supporting young innovators stressing that the youth are the future industrialists.

“The projects supported by NIRDA show we can have innovations that address issues that our industries are faced with,” he said.

“We need more innovations, and we are committed to keep supporting young innovators whose projects bring about a positive impact to our industries. We thank NIRDA for nurturing young innovators and we commit to support more innovators,” he added.

Under its Life Sciences Laboratories and STEM lab, NIRDA supported the young innovators through hackathons for the second time.

Apart from the just concluded Innovate for Cow Biohackathon where 8 groups were awarded with cash prices, NIRDA organized innovate for Industry hackathon and 6 companies were awarded.

Such innovations, according to Dr. Christian Sekomo Birame, NIRDA Director General, more efforts will be put in to support young innovators and ensure that outstanding projects are more improved, registered, and commercialized.

“We will keep working with young innovators and work with other institutions and the private sector to improve the young innovators and ensure that their projects become viable and commercial products,” he said.

Fausta Tumukunde, one of the Green Home Group members who bagged Rwf10 million said she was excited about the award and committed to keep working on their projects.

“Our project seeks to address the issue of environmental pollution, research reveals more trees are cut and used as firewood or charcoal, we want to work using our machine to produce briquettes that are eco-friendly and affordable,” she said.

The National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA), is a government institution that has been mandated with a mission to enable a generation of industrial innovators to become competitive through technology monitoring, acquisition, development and transfer & applied research.