EoW May 2010

The International Magazine for the Wire and Cable Industries

Rwanda’s Internet – banking on youth

News stories about extended bre optic networks and ever higher-speed Internet connections are frequent, but one network project has captured my imagination. Sixteen years after the Genocide, the government of Rwanda is determined that its low-income country will be a middle-income country by 2020. Part of this initiative is the commitment to invest $50 million in a high-speed bre optic backbone to serve the entire country, and to access this connection every child in the country will be given a laptop computer. It’s not simply the commitment to the net- work that engaged me; it’s that, largely, childrenwill lead theway to thepossibilities of the Internet. In Rwanda, over 40% of the population is under 14 years old, and the most common habitation is a fairly isolated family settlement. The laptops will deliver general education, and advice on every- thing from health to animal husbandry, and it’s the children who will form the conduit for ICT to many of their elders. But the plan of the Rwandan government is not just education, vital though that is. High-speed Internet will link suppliers, producers, distributors and customers in a way previously unheard of in the region, opening up essential communication routes for business and commerce. There are other, less obvious ways (to me) that the economy of Rwanda will bene t. For example, banks and ATMs are scarce in Rwanda, making a rather limited cash- based business model the only one available. Internet banking, that most of us take for granted, will become accessible for the rst time. Hence, money will stay in the banks for longer, and be available for banks to lend to further aid development. The Rwandan project attracted my atten- tion because, unlike the usual network announcements, it suggests somuch about optimism, cooperation and reconciliation amid circumstances and di culties that most of us cannot even begin to comprehend.

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It demonstrates a real faith in the future, and reminds me that, wherever we are, our children are inevitably one step ahead of us where technology is concerned.

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