KIGALI, Rwanda — If your last exposure to this East African country was the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” you have some catching up to do.

In the 15 years since the genocide of 1994 brought Rwanda international notoriety, the country has been on a development tear. It is orderly and calm; this year, the World Bank ranked it as the top pro-business reformer in the world.

Now, Rwanda is attempting to position itself on the cutting edge of tech in East Africa. There are plans — none completed so far — to provide a network of fiber optic cables, citywide WiFi in the capital, and one laptop for every child in the country by 2020.

As President Paul Kagame puts it in a statement on the Rwanda Development Board’s website, “In Africa, we have missed both the agricultural and industrial revolutions and in Rwanda we are determined to take full advantage of the digital revolution.”

Some foreigners in the capital scoff at the idea — Rwanda is a very poor country, and it’s still easier to get online in some neighboring countries.

But many other observers, both locally and internationally, think Rwanda may be on to something.

On a recent evening in Kigali’s Blues Cafe, across a parking lot from the posh Union Trading Center mall, and in view of the Hotel des Milles Collines — the real-life Hotel Rwanda — Maurice Masozera talked about the future of tech in the country. Lanky and with a smile fitted in a retainer, the 27-year-old part-time programmer is a member of the Kigali Coders, a group of local techies who do freelance computer support in the city.

“When you look at people here, especially the youth, they are visionary — working hard,” Masozera said as he sipped a mug of warm milk. A soccer match played on a flatscreen TV on the wall to his left. “If we keep up the trend and momentum, we can achieve some pretty good things.”

Masozera’s own evolution into a tech enthusiast encapsulates both the possibilities and challenges to Rwanda achieving its vision.

Like many Rwandans, he is a member of the diaspora who returned. Masozera grew up in Burundi and speaks French, English, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi and Kiswahili. And, like his country, Masozera is a relative newcomer to the internet but a voracious learner. He’s competent in JavaScript, Microsoft Visual Basic and HTML, but he didn’t get online until the year 2000. The learning curve was extremely steep, and he quickly graduated from being a consumer to a creator of content.  Full story >>