Chevening major role in facilitating me to get adequate skills to use ICT innovation for development

Dear comrades,
I would like to request for your comments on my essay about my career plan for a Chevening Scholarship

CAREER PLAN (SHORT AND LONG TERM)

Innovation management is key to industrial development and hence spurs economic development of an entire nation. For instance, according to economists, approximately 50% of U.S. annual GDP growth is attributed to increases in innovation. Rwanda as a country with limited natural resources and high population density (508 people/ Km2), must put in place innovative initiatives in order to respond to the challenges the society faces. The government has invested heavily in Information and Communication Technology as a key driver of national development. With innovation management skills in place, the country is poised to mitigate challenges resulting mainly relying on natural environmental factors that are mostly unreliable.

My short term plan after completing my studies, include completing some web and mobile application projects that I am still working on. I intend to use the knowledge and skills I will acquire to increase the quality of the products. Gained skills will equip me with enhanced critical thinking capabilities hence come up with more solutions that respond to challenges faced by my community. In the beginning, I will rely on financial support from my family and team members. However, I will also participate in competitions organized on national and international level. DFID being one of such organizations that organizes innovation competitions in countries including Rwanda, I will use the skills I acquired to come up with competitive projects that will enable me to win and get grants to fund my projects.

In long term, I plan to advance my company from an SME to a large enterprise. I will use my platform to outsource skilled personnel from Rwanda and abroad in order to strengthen and enhance the company profile. I will extend the focus of my company's solutions beyond Rwanda and explore other markets on the continent. To ensure sustainable competitiveness, I will establish an Innovation and creativity management center. The center will mainly target women and less privileged youth with unexploited potentials. The center will center embark on nurturing the culture of innovation and creativity and also to increase the quality of innovation.

The center will be responsible for identifying people with innovative ideas, bring them together, mentor them, and organize innovation competitions where the best ideas will be supported for all requirements for them to be implemented. The purpose of the center will be to address the issue of people who conceive ideas that can have a great impact to the society but fail to have them materialize due to financial constraints or lack of technical skills.

In nutshell, as one of the UK government mission in Rwanda is to promote job creation through promoting innovation, Chevening scholarship will play a major role in facilitating me to get adequate skills to use ICT innovation for development. This fits well into the UK mission in Rwanda which includes facilitating transformation of the country's economy from an agricultural to private sector-led growth.

Hi,you did a really great job.But if you add 5 year plan in short term goal and add your future detail plan year by year,your essay would be more perfect.You should add more voluntary activities in long term goals,eg delivering programming knowledge in remote areas,helping in setting up small companies in these areas,establishing network from programmers from different areas and traning novices once a month.You should add your aim to reduce poverty in your company mission.Thank a lot.

Ktabarwa, this is a good career plan but it doesn't really reflect how the DFID in your country can help you or how you can cooperate with them regarding improving the ICT industry in your country. As a Chevening scholar you are not expected to join DFID sponsored competitions, You are expected to work directly with the DFIF in order to promote British and Rwandan relationships. Joining a DFID sponsored competition where you might win or lose is not the way to approach that relationship. Instead, you must find ICT projects that the DFID works on directly where you can offer to collaborate with them in an effort to speed up the progress of the program.

You need to present information about your immediate and mid-term career plans, all of which involve the DFID in your country along with your own private career plans. Combining the two would always be best in such a presentation though. You have the right idea in this essay. It is just that the DFID part is weak and should be strengthened in order to better indicate how you can help promote Chevening through collaborations with their British representatives in your country.