As $1.7 million video conferencing facility is rolled out

In 2006 Rwandan President Paul Kagame travelled to the US to hold a meeting with SISCO (Systems Integration Specialists Company) executives. Kagame stated then that one of his desires was for Rwanda to be able to use video conferencing. Back home, an enthusiastic team was soon selected to follow up on the President’s wish.

For example, the president will be able to have meetings at anytime with any or every official. He will not need to call the governor of the Eastern province to his office for a face-to-face meeting. The president will cut tremendously the costs of traveling abroad for executive meetings. He will easily be able to hold a video conference with the White House or Moscow without traveling ever setting foot outside of Rwanda.

Nkubito Bakuramutsa, the Deputy CEO in charge of IT in Rwanda Development Board (RDB-IT) says government meetings can be carried out involving outside parties as well. If President Kagame met with Barack Obama, for example, it would not be necessary to travel again for follow-up meetings. Nkubito says, “Video conferencing will enable us to continue with follow-up meetings and implement things we discussed with development partners.” This will peddle many development projects, especially “when we share ideas with other people from allover the world,” Nkubito says.

If this facility is fixed in every part of the country, hospitals and schools in remote areas will benefit enormously. Doctors from Kigali to London to Washington will be able to communicate with local nurses in the villages to provide quality medical treatment to all Rwandans. Students in schools will be able to listen to lectures from any professor of any university around the world.

The whole point is that this project will help reduce the cost of transport, accommodation and allowances signed for officials. Saul Wamalwa, director for the public sector for The Copy Cat, said the infrastructure is one of the tools for cost saving, time saving and reduction of risks involved in travelling. “We don’t want our presidents to keep traveling to countries every time just for meetings,” Wamalwa noted.

Even businesspeople will be able to tap this opportunity. They will be able to conduct executive business meetings and sign contacts with their partners all over the world without having to travel. Kassim Ntaganda, the director of Computer Bytes, a dealer in IT facilities and services excited that this initiative is coming. “We just can’t wait, because we will benefit a lot out of this project.”

When Kagame weighed the costs and benefits of video conferencing, he found the technology a worthwhile use tax payers’ money. Eventually, on July 23, 2009, Rwanda officially signed off US$1.7 million (about one billion francs) to SISCO.  Today, technical work is undergoing already. The Copy Cat was contracted to fix together and lay down the infrastructure. By June 2010, Rwanda will glow with fireworks to celebrate this milestone. 

Rwanda’s installation of video conferencing is SISCO’s most successful project in Africa, Castegnaro told The Independent shortly after signing the contract with Rwanda. “It took us some time to understand what exactly Rwanda wanted,” he said. “Our work has yielded much more here [Rwanda] than anywhere else on the continent, but we hope to see the technologies being utilized by the people.”

A pilot project, which was successful, had been done already. Nkubito told The Independent that piloting of video systems started two years ago and was successful.  “We started with covering local elections (parliamentarians) and it was executed successfully.”

For poor and landlocked country like Rwanda, this is another strategy to cut down government expenditure. At the moment Kenya has picked up on the idea and Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete has ordered a team to implement the same project.

For this infrastructure to perform, it requires connectivity. Fortunately, the fibre optic connectivity is already here, and all Rwanda’s towns have the cable in the ground. The successful execution of this project is therefore high. Europe, Asia and the US are actively using the same technology, and Nkubito is optimistic that by next year Rwanda will experience a new range of initiatives through this technological venture.

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