The race to become an information and communications technology (ICT) leader in East Africa is on.

Thus far, Kenya has been in the forefront of innovation and implementation of ICT in all its sectors. For example, the likes of MPesa, Safaricom’s mobile money transfer service, has put the country on the global map in terms of financial innovation in particular.

But Kenya’s dominant ICT position in East Africa could be overtaken by a determined Rwanda, which has made strides in using technology to boost development.

eLearning: Kenya vs Rwanda

While Kenya mulls on how to implement digital learning in schools by introducing solar powered laptops, Rwanda is already in the throes of realising gains made by a pilot project that has seen thousands of school children use computers in classrooms.

By August this year, Rwanda’s ‘One Laptop Per Child’ (OLPC) programme had extended its reach to over 400 schools in the country. This is an impressive bid by the government to make learning digital.

OLPC Rwanda lead Nkubito Bakuramutsa Nkubito Bakuramutsa has said the programme has seen over 207,026 laptops delivered to learners across 400 schools.

Though 400 schools is a small fraction of the targeted schools in Rwanda, the ministry of education has also equipped 2,200 schools with wireless connectivity, servers and digital content.

But the journey to this point did not come easy. The OPLC initiative started way back in 2008, and has slowly gathered momentum as government has perfected the programme.

Kenya, on the other hand, is still in the midst of advertising tenders for the supply of the computers to its students. According to Kenyan deputy president, William Ruto, the government has already converted some learning material into ebooks.

Kenya wants to roll out its first phase of the programme in January 2014 amid criticism from all quarters. Pundits suggest that the government is not ready to launch this programme.

Connectivity: Kenya vs Rwanda

Kenya has seen great strides in broadband connectivity thanks to three submarine cables landing on its shores. But the cost of internet has not exactly gone down. The implementation of the use of ICT in Kenya is still far behind, although gaining momentum.

The government of Rwanda has made intentional moves to make connectivity a reality in the landlocked nation. According to Liquid Telecom Rwanda chief executive, Sam Nkusi, being landlocked has given Rwanda options to connect to other countries apart from Kenya.

“Being in the heart of Africa has turned out to be a blessing for Rwanda. With ICT now we are land-linked not land-locked,” Nkusi has told ITWeb Africa.

In that case, Rwanda has turned to its other neighboring countries such as Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania for connectivity rather than solely relying on the Kenyan coast to bring in the fibre networks.

Nkusi has added that the country plans to push for fibre to be deployed deep into the rural areas of Rwanda. He has also alluded that Liquid Telecom is planning to setup a data centre in Rwanda.

Liquid Telecom Kenya, though, already has a data centre, which is ready to be upgraded to be a carrier neutral centre. AccessKenya have also unveiled their data centre in Mombasa

“ICT is not an area of competition. It should be a right of every nation and every citizen to have access,” Nkusi said.

“There is a lot of progress being done in Rwanda but the important thing is that it must be seen to be done every to be felt by citizens.”

“On the positive, Rwanda has put up the right measures,” he added.

In Rwanda every ICT product is zero rated. For Kenya, 16% value added tax has been reintroduced for ICT products. This situation, according to experts, could erode gains made by Kenya over the four years that the tax was not in operation.

Government Initiatives: Kenya vs Rwanda

Rwanda’s government has aggressively made sure that ICT is used in every sector. For example, ICT has helped business people open and register a company in a matter of hours, as opposed to the weeks one has to wait in Kenya.

However, Kenya is currently digitising its business registration process to allow individuals to search for business names via the internet and through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) queries.

Rwanda has also recently announced that plans to start rolling out e-government services.

These e-services are set to include government to government services, government to citizen and government to business.

Not much, though, can be said about the Kenyan situation, where there is no single combined effort to roll out government services reachable by ICT tools.

Supply and demand

Demand for technology services, though, is also a key feature that drives adoption of ICT in East Africa.

In Kenya, mobile money succeeded owing to the demand that existed the market: there was a need to deliver money safely and efficiently, and the telcos answered to this need.

For ICT to be liberated in Rwanda, citizens also need to also be interested, educated and find relevance in what the government and the private sector are doing from a technology point of view.

All in all, though, the race for East Africa ICT hub is on.