Faculty & Staff

Dr. Mukulira Olivier is the Director In-Charge at RIEDC. He is currently serving as Managing Director of Rwanda Institute of Cooperatives, Entrepreneurship and Microfinance (RICEM). Before joining RICEM, He was working for USAID Soma Umenye as a Research Specialist. Prior to that, He worked for other projects like USAID Huguka Dukore and VVOB. Dr Mukulira has a wide range of experience in Academia whereby He served as Lecturer, Dean of Faculty, Vice Principal and Finally Principal. His area of specialisation include but not limited to, Curriculum Design (particularly competence based curriculum, using DACUM approach), Education Research, Guidance and Counselling and Education Management. Dr Mukulira has served as a Senior Manager in different organisations both public and Private whereby He contributed in project design and fundraising. The experience as a Senior Manager led him to the acquisition of skills in strategic planning, action and work planning as well as managing the budget. As a cabinet appointee, Dr. Mukulira Olivier has served as Director of TVET Accreditation and Quality Assurance for five years whereby he was involved in inspection of schools, Competence based Curricula validation and mostly the development of the TVET qualification framework and standards as well as accreditation of schools from secondary to tertiary level.

Dr. Mukulira has also worked with development partners including APEFE and VVOB for tools development and school Management project. Dr. Mukulira worked at IPRC/South as Vice Principal Academics. In addition to the above records, Dr. Mukulira worked for VVOB which is a Flemish organisation working on a project of coaching school Manager in leadership to increase school performance.

Dr MUKULIRA worked as Principal of University of Kigali, Musanze Campus for two years, a campus that he started with when it opened its doors. Dr. Mukulira has been trained by HEC as an Academic Auditor. Part of his experience with NGOs, Dr. Mukulira served as Deputy Director in charge of Monitoring and Evaluation, Learning and Planning at Akazi Kanoze Access.

Email: mukulirao@gmail.com
Phone: +250 783 551 066

Dr. Piyush Kumar Sinha is currently on Government of India deputation as the Advisor, Rwanda-India Entrepreneurship Development Centre at Kigali, Rwanda. Earlier to this, he has been the Chief Mentor, SVEP, a, initiative of Government of India, at EDII. Under this programme, he has been involved in setting up entrepreneurial ecosystems in more than 15 states of India which has helped 65,000 rural people to become entrepreneurs.

Prof. Sinha has more than 40 years of Teaching, Research, Advisory and Training as well as Managerial experience in Entrepreneurship and business strategy for product and service organisations (B2C and B2B). He has been involved in more than 100 advisory and training initiatives. Prof. Sinha holds a Ph.D. in marketing. He was a Professor in Retailing and Chairperson, Centre for Retailing as well as Chairperson, Marketing at IIM Ahmedabad, till March 2018. Before IIMA, he has taught at IIM Bangalore, XIMB and was Dean at MICA.

Jean Claude UWITONZE is a competent financial services, entrepreneurship, and project management professional with a wide experience accumulated over the years working with various institutions (Local and International).

He is currently working as Programs Manager in Rwanda Institute of Cooperative, Entrepreneurship, and Microfinance (RICEM). He is also a part-time lecturer of business-oriented subjects at the University.

His academic background is in business studies. He holds A2 in Business Information Technology and Management, a bachelor’s degree in Accounting, and MBA – Accounting and Finance. Concerning professional training, he is a certified professional trainer in Entrepreneurship from Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII)- India, international certified expert in Microfinance from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management – Germany, certified trainer in corporate governance by IFC – World Bank, Certified by School of African Microfinance (SAM)- Kenya, certified in trainer development skills for senior trainers , certified in proposal writing and fundraising, certified in managing donor-funded projects and other various training ever attended as trainee and others that he conducted as a trainer.

Before joining the current organization (RICEM), he worked in different organizations (local and international) : He worked in Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC currently known as DSIK) for 5 years whereby he occupied 2 major positions namely (1) Responsible Finance and Performance Monitoring officer and (2) Capacity Development Expert.

He also worked as a consultant in SUISSCONTACT whereby he facilitated product development to a Micro-leasing project in Rwanda. He also worked on two projects namely (1) Financial Education - World Bank and (2) Dual Apprenticeship System – SBFIC/DSIK. He also worked on the HINGA WEZE project/USAID through AMIR whereby he developed and trained a module covering Governance for SACCOs, Loan cycle management and risk assessment, and Agriculture Value Chain Finance.

He worked in Vision Finance Company currently known as Vision Fund Rwanda whereby he worked as project coordinator (KIVA and World Vision Micro). With those 2 projects, he was coordinating both projects related activities of helping poor entrepreneurs in Rwanda to create opportunities for themselves and their communities.

Prof. Gujaral Has over 30 years of experience in the field of Entrepreneurship Development. He has expertise in new enterprise creation and in extending support to the existing entrepreneurs. He has also developed curriculum, modules, and structures for various entrepreneurship development activities. He specialises in the areas of business opportunity identification and guidance, project report preparation and entrepreneurship. He has worked on various entrepreneurship development models through CSR initiatives of corporates like Facebook, Accenture, HSBC, HCL, Walmart, HP and ITC in India. He has widely travelled for entrepreneurship related assignments to places such as Lao PDR, Iran, Philippines, Comoros, Malaysia and Rwanda.

Dr. Amit Kumar Dwivedi has over 15 years of teaching and research experience. He is a National Team Member of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) India. Dr. Dwivedi is also one of the co-authors of GEM India Report 2014, 2015, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. He has participated in a training of trainers program on ‘Business Simulation Teaching’, held at ILS, University of Tennessee, USA. Dr. Dwivedi has presented his research in conferences in China and Malaysia. Currently he is Associate Professor at EDII-Ahmedabad. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences.

Miss. Espérance Niyitegeka is Head of entrepreneurship since March 2020. With six years of experience, Miss. Esperance has demonstrated experience in working with local and International organizations. Much of her work was to plan, coordinate ,organize all activities related to administration, projects implementation, training delivery, monitoring and evaluation and improve the effectiveness that contribute to the development of institution.

Last position was administrative assistant and human resources at RICEM for three years till February 2020, Served in Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC East Africa) as junior consultant in different departments : capacity building department, financial education department, In 2016, worked at Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA) where she Conducted a research on impact assessment of Financial Education to SACCOs members in 30 districts of our country, the project funded by world bank, Worked along/ trained by African Evangelistic Enterprise (AEE) on Internal Savings and lending Groups (ISLGs).

Miss. Esperance is Bachelor’s degree holder in Rural Development and Agribusiness from University of Rwanda (UR/CAVM). Certified as master trainer of Entrepreneurship Development from Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), she is a Certified Expert in Microfinance from Frankfurt School of Finance Germany. She speaks English, French and Kinyarwanda.

Email: esperanceniyitegeka@gmail.com
Phone: +250 788 641 893

Dr. Rajesh is a business management professional with more than 2 decades of work experience in industry and development sector. During last 10 years, he has worked extensively in the areas of creative co creation in livelihoods and has promoted rural micro-enterprises in various sectors including the handloom and handicraft clusters. Currently under the Ministry of Rural Development Project, he is involved in promoting nano enterprises in rural areas spread across 42 blocks in 11 states across the country. His thematic areas of interest include development studies, sub-sector analysis, livelihoods, institutional innovations in informal sector, value chain, new product & design development and social entrepreneurship.

Mr. Bernardin Uwayezu is currently working as an Accountant of Rwanda Institute of Cooperatives, Entrepreneurship and Microfinance (RICEM) since August 2020, before joining RICEM he was working for I&M bank as a credit Administration officer. Mr. Uwayezu has a wide range of experience in the finance department of more than 3 years and he has served as a researcher in Enterprise Africa.

Mr. Uwayezu is currently pursuing CPA, Kenya with intermediate level and he holds a Bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Rwanda (former SFB), he holds a certificate of student training for Entrepreneurial Promotion (STEP) from LEUPHANA University in partnership with the University of Rwanda and certificate from Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) Rwanda.

Email: uwayezuberdin@gmail.com
Phone: +250 783 873 452