Smart Kigali: Free wifi for everyone

Kigali became the first city in East Africa to launch free wireless Internet in specific areas of the capital last week under the “Smart Kigali” initiative, joining the ranks of “digital cities” such as Toronto, Houston, Buenos Aires, Bangkok and Taipei.

This puts Rwanda ahead of the pack in the digital race in East Africa, giving it an edge over Kenya’s much-hyped Konza City, which is yet to take off despite a colourful launch early this year.

Konza TechnoCity has been in the works for several years now and is intended to be an innovation and tech incubation centre serviced by the best ICT infrastructure in East Africa. The delay in building has been blamed on government bureaucracy and confusion over city boundaries.

East Africa’s tech start-ups are hosted in small open-plan spaces such as iHub and mLab in Nairobi, KinuHub and TanzICT in Dar es Salaam, and Outbox and Hivacolab in Kampala. But Kigali’s move to offer free wireless around the city will extend Rwanda’s tech footprint in the region, and leapfrog key stages of industrialisation.

“I am so excited about the wireless Internet. I can now browse the internet, read news and send e-mails. I just come here to surf the Internet, since I am still looking for a job,” said Goreti Uwamariya, a student at Kigali Independent University.

Philbert Nsengimana, Minister for ICT, reassured the public that the project is sustainable because it comes with a business model and added that the government has plans to ensure more Rwandans have access to smart devices to tap into the opportunity.

Critical mass

The government has in the past launched projects in the ICT sector that crumbled before take off because of lack of sustainability—Rwanda did not have the critical mass of Internet users to make the projects viable.

But according to RDB reports, in the past five years, Rwanda has registered one of the highest Internet user growth rates in Africa with 8,900 per cent compared with the continent’s growth rate of 2,450 per cent and the world average rate of 444 per cent.

Rwanda now has an Internet penetration of around 800,000 users and is targeting five million users by 2016.

The government strongly believes that information and communications technology can enable Rwanda leap-frog the key stages of industrialisation.

In 2010, more than 38.9 per cent of Rwanda’s public sector (ministries, agencies, provinces and districts) and 34.5 per cent of the private sector had a web presence. According to government statistics, there are over 3.1 million mobile subscribers, representing 32 per cent penetration of mobile usage.

Vision 2020

The country’s Vision 2020 hopes to transform Rwanda into a middle-income country and transition from an agrarian economy into an information-rich, knowledge-based society by 2020.

Mr Nsengimana argues that Smart Kigali is not a project to benefit only the elite who can afford smart gadgets but will extend to the majority of Rwandans after the government launched Vizio, a programme that will see it negotiate with manufacturers and banks to offer smart gadgets to low income citizens.

He also noted that though Internet is being provided free of charge, telecommunication companies stand to make gains as more hotels and businesses come on board. The government has also established necessary infrastructure by way of a fibre optic cable throughout the country.

Antoine Bigirimana, an industry expert, said the wireless initiative will increase the range of service consumers in different categories although the cost must be zero or extremely small, like Rwf100, to attract users.

“Smart Kigali is a good marketing move, it helps us convince tourists and foreigners that it is good and easy to do business in Rwanda,” he said.

Today’s session: 2nd day of the workshop

We did 4 types of activities:

1.      We worked on the blog, continuing where we left the previous day (23.03.2015). the activity based on formatting the blog in terms of posting, bookmarking, editing, putting comments, traffic sources, etc

2.      We practiced the journalistic research on the Internet. The emphasis was based on search strategies using the various search tools. The facilitator emphasized that internet is not the panacea for sourcing all information. More ways have to be employed in which one can still use direct interviews, photos, videos, traditional sources like books etc in order to get deeper information.

3.      We did the search exercises using the above search strategies. We searched different information by phrasing words using the Google search engine.

4.      We began practicing the story writing approaches that have been taught by using different information from various websites. The facilitator provided 3 topics to be well searched and later develop to a well written story

Two things I liked most:  Formatting of the blog and the search strategies. These have added my expertise in using the web

Generally, everything looked good and important

I have learnt a lot in  today’s workshop session 

Today’s session: 1st day of the workshop

·         We started the today’s session by introducing ourselves to each other. Mr. Peik the facilitator introduced himself first then the participants. Thereafter, the facilitator introduced the concepts on the investigative internet journalism where he defined the terms with some examples. He explained the main objective of investigative internet journalism was to use the internet in fact finding and developing journalism stories based on research so that it exposes to the public bad issues which people tend to hide such as corruption, crimes, etc. This was a lengthy discussion on how investigative internet journalism is done in the world. He also gave the differences between blogs, discussion forums and facebook.  He also gave us some links to various online resources that explain more about the topic, such as The News manual by Daniel, Vol. 1-24 and others. There were some contributions from the participants.

Later, Mr. Peik introduced us how to create a blog. I managed to create a blog with the title: Tagamasimu in which I posted my first text about myself and a short account about the workshop.

·         What I liked most was the fact that I did not know the difference between a blog, discussion forum such as Jamii Forum and facebook account. I liked how one can use a facebook to collect views, tips, information, etc.  which would help to conduct a deeper investigation and later come up with a factual analysis for publication so that people can read your story and know what is going on. I also enjoyed the creation of my own blog. This was also my new experience having the expertise of creating a blog. Finally, I liked the menu provided to all of us. It was both nutritious and delicious indeed.

·         Everything was very good, except the session began late but for justifiable reasons.

·         What I learnt today: The concepts of investigative internet journalism and how to create a blog

·         Concrete examples about research assignments, search tips: The class discussion helped me to know that facebook can be a very resourceful place to get story tips, information and data in order to conduct an investigative story through the internet although majority use it for entertainment, fancy  stories about celebrities, sex partners, friends, etc

My Profile

Ordination Mgongolwa is currently lecturing in the Department of Journalism at University of Iringa (IIoU). He is expert in both media and information studies. He has interchangeably been teaching photo journalism, radio & TV production and Journalism and Mass Communication. The radio and edit & design courses have been fruitful in the fact that students have been able to access and practice in the Hope FM radio station, weekly newsletter (The Tumaini Weekly) and The Tumaini Hill a monthly magazine. Apart from teaching in the university level, Mr. Mgongolwa has a civil society that caters for destitute children.