From the Series
Teddy Ruge is the co-founder of HiveColab, an innovation hub and start-up incubator located in Kampala, Uganda. Founded in 2010, HiveColab is credited as one of the first innovation hubs in Africa along with Kenya’s iHub.
“HiveColab is a technology co-working space and incubation centre,” says Teddy Ruge. “We house various technological start-ups that are working on various products for Ugandan’s digital economies.”
We also offer various mentoring services that help start-ups think broadly about the tools that they’re building. – Ruge
Ruge is also the co-founder of Remit, an online platform that allows people across the globe to send money to Uganda. “We originally started it because we wanted a cheaper, easier, faster way for members of Uganda’s diaspora to send remittances back to the country.”
“When I was living out of the country I was really frustrated by how inefficient and expensive it was to send remittances to Uganda,” says Ruge.
Ruge has expansion plans for Remit. He hopes to extend the payment engine into Africa and the rest of the African diaspora to solve the “shared frustration” of sending remittances to friends and family at home.
“All the frustrations really are opportunities to innovate and I think the mother of all invention is frustration with the status quo,” says Ruge. “I wish that here were ten copies of me because there so many things that I’m frustrated with in Uganda, both digital and analogue, that I’d like to contribute to making better.”
