Helping millions of Rwandan youth access health information and services

How YLabs built a scalable, sustainable model to reach millions of Rwandan youth with a digital health product — powered by partnerships with local NGOs, youth centres, and healthcare partners

Partnerships | Lean Testing | Financial readiness | Health Intervention | Rwanda

Youth Development Labs (YLabs) is a global design and research organisation advancing youth health and economic opportunity through digital innovation. YLabs uses human-centred design, behavioural science, and systems thinking to develop impactful solutions. One of their flagship programmes, CyberRwanda, aims to improve access to accurate health information and services for young Rwandans.

Challenge

After successfully launching and evaluating CyberRwanda, a digital platform co-designed with over 1,000 young people and community stakeholders, YLabs faced a critical challenge:

How can we scale the solution nationally while maintaining its fidelity, value, and youth-centred ethos?

Over several months of virtual and in-person collaborations, Spring Impact worked with YLabs to build a roadmap to scale, while staying rooted in reality and ambition.

OUTCOMES

On track to reach 90k young people

by the end of 2025, paving the way for eventual national scale to 2.2 million youth

Partnerships in motion

with youth-led organisations already expressing interest in implementation

Clarity of direction

YLabs now has a strategic approach for scale and a model tailored for systemic integration

“
Our work together has laid a strong foundation that continues to shape CyberRwanda’s scale strategy.
”

Fabiola Ngamije, Project Lead

Our process

1. Setting the strategic foundation

YLabs needed to define a clear, measurable scale goal grounded in national-level impact and in existing health system infrastructure. Together, we worked to:

Articulate an audacious but focused aim: 80% of Rwandan youth aged 10–19 (about 2.2 million) having access to trusted health information, and 680,000 feeling confident to act on it.
Develop a phased approach to scaling, with a first phase focusing on urban contexts with higher rates of internet connectivity and access and using the learnings and experience gained to expand access to rural contexts through the development of a low-tech solution during a second phase.
Identify key metrics for phase 1: coverage of approximately 700 urban secondary schools, 75% school uptake, and 80% youth accessing services.
Align scale ambition with national priorities, while ensuring the strategy preserved YLabs’ focus on equity and youth agency.

Building this strategic foundation created clarity and alignment. Everyone knew what success looked like, and what would need to change to get there.

2. Defining a delivery model that maintains quality

We supported YLabs to explore which aspects of CyberRwanda’s implementation model were essential for impact, and which could adapt to enable scale. Together, we:

Identified the school system as the core delivery channel, with youth centres, NGO partners and health workers as key stakeholders.
Clarified the role of digital access, mental health integration, and fidelity support mechanisms.
Developed guidance on how to identify and support the right partners with delivery while preserving core programme integrity.

This helped YLabs make confident trade-offs between reach and quality, and build a strategy grounded in reality.

3. Exploring financial readiness and partnerships at scale

To move from successful pilot to national reach, YLabs needed to understand the financial realities of scaling CyberRwanda through partners.

Together, we shifted from an initial focus on progressing to government-led delivery to a more viable model: scaling through large, well-established NGOs and the existing Youth Centres infrastructure in Rwanda.

We co-developed a cost calculator to estimate the financial implications of supporting different types of partners —from setting up the partnership, to YLabs providing ongoing support to partners.
Crucially, this model assumed that these partners could cover their own implementation costs, reducing YLabs’ financial burden. In contrast, early exploration indicated that Youth Centres would likely require direct financial support from YLabs, making them a more resource-intensive option.

This work helped surface key trade-offs and inform future partnership decisions. It grounded YLabs’ scale strategy in financial reality and equipped them with a compelling value proposition to bring high-quality NGO partners on board.

4. Identifying assumptions and designed lean tests

Rather than launching prematurely into implementation, YLabs adopted a lean approach to identify and interrogate the riskiest assumptions in their model, such as partner readiness, digital access, and school engagement.

By validating assumptions upfront, YLabs avoided costly missteps and built a more robust and adaptable pathway to scale.

5. Mapping a path forward for national scale

The final phase focused on crystallising the next steps for turning their vision into reality.

Developed a high-level roadmap with next steps, timelines, and roles.
Designed a plan for continued testing and refinement, especially for delivery support tools and digital inclusion strategies.

This equipped YLabs with a practical, phased pathway they could act on immediately.

RESULTS

Improved strategic capabilities. Staff reported stronger capacity to think critically about delivery trade-offs, stakeholder alignment, and sustainability.

Increased confidence and commitment. Survey data and feedback indicated high confidence in the strategy and enthusiasm to apply it in practice.

Mindset shifts. Notable changes were seen in how team members approached long-term planning and decision-making, with stronger centring of youth needs and system-level considerations.

Pathways in motion. YLabs is now engaging key stakeholders and refining partnerships that will underpin national implementation of CyberRwanda.

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