Expression of Interest for Consultancy for Provision of end-to-end support to the Solve-athon Hanga: Smart Cities Location: kigali Deadline: Thursday, 02/04/2026 23:59 Expression of Interest (EoI) Consultancy for Provision of end-to-end support to the Solve-athon Hanga: Smart Cities Transaction no.:7000003643 Project processing number:G-012069-001 Internal order:12069020000 Country: Rwanda 1. Background and introduction 1.1. About GIZ The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. The GIZ Office in Kigali covers GIZs portfolio in Rwanda and Burundi. GIZ Rwanda/Burundi implements projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union and other commissioning authorities in the following priority areas: Sustainable Economic Development, Good Governance, Climate, Energy and Sustainable Urban Development, Digitalization and Digital Economy, Mineral Governance, Peace and Security in the Great Lakes Region. 1.2. About GIZs Cluster for Digital Transformation and Digital Economy GIZ Rwandas Cluster for Digital Transformation and Digital Economy cluster is a Rwandan-German initiative to develop impact-driven digital solutions for Rwanda and beyond. Therefore, it provides not only advisory services and training for government institutions and local tech companies but also a modern space to boost creativity and collaboration with the main political partner the Ministry of ICT and Innovation and all of this is based out of the Digital Transformation Center Rwanda. 1.3. About the Smart City Hub At the Digital Transformation Centre Rwanda, one of the programs is the Smart City Hub, which is a consortium between the Ministry of ICT & Innovation, the ICT Chamber, Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA), Ministry of Infrastructure and Ministry of Local Government. The Hub is a one-stop shop where actors in the smart city ecosystem (public, private, and development) can collaborate to empower the digitalisation of cities and co-design solutions that address urbanisation challenges to improve urban service delivery and quality of life through technology and innovation. The overall aim of the Smart City Hub is to provide value-adding services to ecosystem actors (SMEs, cities, the private sector, etc) through. Creating a demand-driven agenda where ecosystem actors are engaged through various initiatives to inform on the top priority activities. Becoming the source of research, knowledge, and connections through sharing information, leveraging networks, and matchmaking opportunities. Supporting solutions that address the smart city initiatives from the pooled demand. 1.4. Context 1.4.1. Hanga: Smart City Solve-athon The Hanga: Smart City Solve-athon is a catalytic program launched by the Smart City Hub in partnership with MINICT, targeting Rwandas fast-urbanising secondary cities. It invites local innovators, startups, and ecosystem players to co-develop digital or smart city solutions to specific urban challenges faced by local governments in Musanze, Rwamagana, Kayonza, Rubavu, and Bugesera. Rather than a traditional hackathon, the solve-athon format is preferred as it is a multi-day problem-solving process focused on real-world implementation, stakeholder alignment, and solution maturity, prioritizing replicability, scalability, and livelihood impact. Through the Solve-athon, secondary and satellite cities are empowered to articulate their digital priorities and shape the solutions they need. The Innovators receive support, mentorship, and real-world testing environments for their solutions, not just pitch stages. Through this approach, communities benefit from services designed around their actual pain points rather than generic solutions. The objectives of the Solve-athon include but are not limited to; Identifying and prototyping smart, context-specific solutions to urban challenges in Rwandas secondary and satellite cities. Fostering city innovator collaboration and unlocking district-level innovation demand. Support the NST2 agenda by driving digital transformation, job creation, urban service delivery, and environmental sustainability. Enable secondary cities to pilot and adopt low-cost, high-impact digital solutions. The tasks of this assignment are to provide end-to-end support to the Hanga: Smart City Solve-athon in the form of; Processing and shortlisting submitted innovations to determine which are best aligned with the district-specific challenges. Provide mentorship support for the shortlisted innovators during the bootcamp sprint window of the solve-athon. Support the innovators solutions to ensure that they are implementation-ready and sustainable in the long term. Support the innovators in ensuring that the solutions follow a replicable model. 1.4.2 . Structure and Approach of the End-to-End Support The end-to-end support for the Hanga: Smart City Solve-athon focuses on operationalising a structured solve-athon across the five selected districts of Rubavu, Musanze, Rwamagana, Kayonza, and Bugesera, through identifying pilot solutions from innovators with existing MVPs, providing support to them through a sprint (bootcamp), mentorship, and demo day process, and ultimately selecting the winning solutions which will be implemented for the respective districts. The structure of the end-end support will be guided by the following principles: Shortlisting and matching of innovators: The consultant will sieve through a list of innovators who responded to the open call for applications and align them with district-defined smart city priorities. Support for the solve-athon sprint (bootcamp): The consultant will liaise with district representatives and innovators to ground the proposed solutions in the districts priorities. Demo day readiness support: Preparing innovators to present their refined solutions at demo days, emphasising pilot concepts and implementation logic to the district representatives and other stakeholders. Pilot Support: The consultant will focus on ensuring that the innovators solutions are aligned with real-world implementation, with emphasis on sustainability and replicability. This open and adaptive structure allows the consultant to act as a hands-on, problem-solving partner, supporting the Smart City Hub in laying the groundwork for an operationally ready and locally integrated solution for the districts in Rwanda. 2. Tasks to be performed by the consultant This section highlights the main support areas where the consultant will assist the Smart City hub in establishing a strong solve-athon programme. From legal setup to building local partnerships, tailoring the proposed solutions, and developing roll-out strategies, the consultants role is to guide the innovators through the crucial early steps of implementing their proposed solutions. Special attention will also be given to ensuring that the solutions chosen for implementation meet strict criteria, including sustainability and replicability. The consultant is responsible for providing the following services: Work Package 1: Solve-athon sprint (bootcamp) mentorship support This work package aims to have the consultant support selected innovators in refining their solutions through product development, business model design, and contextual validation with district representatives. This involves the following tasks: Onboarding and kick-off: Introduce selected companies to the solve-athons overall program, activities, available resources, and expectations. Problem deep-dive and contextualization: With the support of district representatives, innovators will gain first-hand insights into the operational realities and context that underpin each challenge. This engagement will enable them to validate initial assumptions, clearly define the problem statement, and appropriately contextualise their solutions to the district environment. Know Your Customer (KYC): Support innovators in identifying, segmenting, and understanding their target customers and institutional adopters in relation to the specific challenges they address. Product development sprints: Guide innovators through group workshops and one-on-one coaching in refining solution functionalities, workflows, and technical components, ensuring feasibility within district settings and pilot constraints. Business model development and feasibility: Support innovators through group workshops and one-on-one mentorship to clarify customer and beneficiary segments, value propositions, cost structures, revenue streams, and partnership requirements. In addition, each innovations legal compliance will be assessed against the implementation requirements for the proposed innovation. Pitching and storytelling: Innovators will receive support on pitch deck development, pitching delivery and storytelling to strengthen their ability to clearly and convincingly communicate their solutions to different stakeholders. This support will focus on helping teams articulate the problem context, solution logic, and implementation approach, and expected impact in a coherent and compelling manner, grounded in district realities. Deliverables and outputs Innovators have refined MVPs that are to be validated with the district representatives Pitch decks for the processed solutions Improved Business Models that are aligned with the sustainability model Final list of pilot-ready innovations Needs assessment report, including gaps and areas of improvements for each solution Work Package 2: Demo days readiness support The Demo Day represents the formal transition point between solution design and real-world implementation within the Hanga: Smart City Solve-athon. The Demo Da Tender Link : https://www.jobinrwanda.com/job/expression-interest-eoi-consultancy-provision-end-end-support-solve-athon-hanga-smart-cities
