Entrepreneurship at Ampersand: Scaling Across Borders in Africa
A masterclass in hardware entrepreneurship with Alp Tilev, President, CTO and Co-founder of Ampersand, Rwanda's leading electric motorcycle and battery swap company. Co-hosted with the CMU-Africa Energy & Embedded Systems Club.
What happened
On February 20, 2026, AIS co-hosted a session with the CMU-Africa Energy and Embedded Systems Club featuring Alp Tilev, President, CTO, and Co-founder of Ampersand, Rwanda's leading electric motorcycle and battery-swap company. The theme: "Scaling Across Borders in Africa."
Why Ampersand
Ampersand is one of East Africa's most important clean-energy startups, having pioneered electric motorcycles and battery-swap infrastructure across Rwanda and Kenya, and a leading example of capital-intensive climate technology built for African market conditions.
What was covered
- The full arc from prototype to scale, and what changed at each stage
- Navigating infrastructure gaps, regulatory environments, and consumer behaviour change in different African markets
- Lessons specific to hardware entrepreneurship that don't show up in software-first founder talks
- A practical blueprint for cross-border expansion in clean-energy technology
Cross-club collaboration
The co-hosting with the Energy & Embedded Systems Club reflects AIS's commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration, pairing entrepreneurship-first conversations with the deep-technical communities on campus.