US-based Carnegie Mellon University has announced the opening of a new regional centre for ICT in Rwanda, aimed at increasing science and technology development across East Africa.

“Research and development in technology is now a global enterprise and Carnegie Mellon realised that education also needed to be a global enterprise to meet the demands of highly skilled engineers and innovators,” university director in Rwanda Bruce Krogh said.

Krogh said the west was not the sole source of technological breakthroughs anymore, “nor was it the dominant growth market for information and communication technology (ICT)”.

The university said they see East Africa as a beacon for ICT transformation, praising the region’s recent jumps in telecoms and IT infrastructure. Carnegie hopes to assist in continuing this success by bolstering ICT education.

He added that “for the case of Rwanda, there is a business-friendly, pro-ICT development program (Vision 2020) under which nation-wide fiber-optic cables will be installed throughout the country.”

Joseph Mayton