On Could 23, 2026, BK Basis, in partnership with iDebate Rwanda, hosted the nationwide finale of the fourth cohort of the Cash Makeover Problem, awarding college students from two best-performing faculties for his or her revolutionary monetary literacy tasks.
The Cash Makeover Problem is a sensible competitors that pushes secondary faculty college students to use real-world monetary considering, transferring past classroom concept to develop enterprise concepts that may generate and maintain earnings.
This 12 months’s finale drew 11 faculties from throughout the nation: E.S Bumbogo, IFAK Kimihurura, Kagarama Secondary Faculty, Rusumo Excessive Faculty, Lycée de Rusumo, Rwanda Coding Academy, Cornerstone Management Academy, Rwanda Kids Christian Faculty, Saint Mary’s Excessive Faculty Kiruhura, Petit Séminaire Saint Léon Kabgayi, and Agahozo Shalom Youth Village.
The programme is constructed on the assumption that equipping younger folks with monetary expertise early creates a technology able to making smarter financial selections, constructing companies, and contributing meaningfully to nationwide improvement.
Every faculty despatched a workforce of three college students who got a monetary situation: two younger graduates incomes Rwf60,000 a month however spending Rwf80,000, leaving a month-to-month deficit of Rwf20,000. Groups needed to design a viable enterprise thought that may not solely shut that hole but additionally generate sufficient surplus to help the scholars’ future plans.
IFAK Kimihurura claimed first place and took dwelling Rwf900,000, with E.S Bumbogo ending as runners-up and receiving Rwf450,000. Lycée de Rusumo positioned third, Rwanda Kids Christian Faculty fourth, and Rwanda Coding Academy fifth. All 350 college students who participated throughout the coaching phases acquired Rwf50,000 every and certificates of participation.
Ketsia Keza, Coordinator of the Cash Makeover Problem, stated the programme has grown nicely past what they initially envisioned, with the two-year partnership with BK Basis having made it potential to succeed in a degree of impression that may in any other case have been inconceivable.
“In two years, we’ve managed to coach shut to fifteen,000 college students, which might not have been achievable with out BK Basis’s dedication. We’re not stopping right here , we’re increasing the attain of this problem, together with the potential of bringing it to a nationwide tv viewers,” she stated.
For Guilliane Juru, 17, a Senior 5 Physics, Chemistry and Arithmetic scholar at IFAK Kimihurura, profitable the fourth cohort was a validation of the workforce’s preparation and inventive considering. Her workforce offered two tasks: “Sensible Card Canteen,” a card-based fee system designed to assist mother and father ship cash on to their kids’s faculty canteen accounts, lowering the danger of money being misplaced or misused, and “Akazi Hyperlink,” a coaching platform connecting contemporary graduates with employers.
“Cash, nevertheless little, all the time has the potential to develop if dealt with with self-discipline. Competing right here taught me that monetary literacy is not only about figuring out the idea, it’s about having the boldness to place it into apply. I’m already serious about investing in BK Capital shares as a place to begin,” she stated.
Arnold Imfura Munyaneza, a Senior 5 Arithmetic, Physics and Geography scholar at E.S Bumbogo, stated the competitors shifted how he and his teammates take into consideration cash, from one thing to be spent to one thing to be managed and grown.
“Earlier than, we thought the pure factor to do with cash was to spend it after which search for extra. Now we perceive that the very first thing you do whenever you obtain cash is put aside what you’ll save, after which work with what stays. That shift in considering is what this competitors gave us,” he stated. His workforce’s tasks included an automatic envelope-making machine and a fertiliser manufacturing enterprise, each designed to generate earnings and employment.
The fourth cohort additionally marked a major regional milestone. Six college students from Taraba State, Nigeria, attended the occasion as a part of a rising partnership between iDebate Rwanda and Nigerian faculties. The Nigerian delegation took half in a standalone debate on the professionals and cons of Synthetic Intelligence in training, which they gained by arguing the case towards early AI adoption.
“Coming to Rwanda gave me a unique perspective on what younger persons are able to when they’re given the proper platform. Debates like this one prepare you to assume quick, take a place, and defend it with proof, expertise that matter far past the classroom,” stated Gabriel U. Divine, one of many Nigerian individuals.
Consistent with the programme’s philosophy of turning studying into lasting habits, the prize cash awarded to profitable groups isn’t handed over immediately as money. It’s as an alternative channelled via AGUKA, an funding fund managed by BK Capital, in order that winners expertise firsthand what it means to speculate quite than merely spend a reward.
By way of a mixture of structured coaching, aggressive problem-solving, and hands-on publicity to funding, BK Basis is working to make sure that Rwanda’s subsequent technology of entrepreneurs begins their journey not from scratch, however from a basis of sound monetary information.
