The Rwanda Ministry of Youth and ICT has today announced a partnership with Ericsson to design a roadmap and deploy solutions and services required to create a fully functioning knowledge-based society.

The SMART Rwanda Initiative is geared towards connecting, innovating and transforming Rwanda into a knowledge economy thereby driving Rwanda's global competitiveness and job creation. The initiative also aims at enabling Rwanda become a highly competitive, agile, open and innovative smart economy with the most favorable business climate that attracts large-scale investments, rewards entrepreneurship and enables fast growth and exports, leveraging ICT innovations to transform the nation into a smart society.

Jean Philbert Nsengimana, minister of Youth and ICT "In Rwanda, we are steadily moving towards our vision of becoming an information-rich and knowledge-based economy and society, and an ICT hub in the region. However, our focus is not just technology, but how it can be used to deliver better services, create jobs and transform the Rwandan society and economy in a constantly changing environment. This is the focus of the SMART RWANDA Plan. We acknowledge Ericsson's leadership in connected societies across the world and are leaning on their expertise to accomplish this in Rwanda"

In this partnership, Ericsson will be a trusted advisor, systems integrator, and implementation partner for the solutions and services required in the development and launch of the 'SMART Rwanda' initiaitive.

Fredrik Jejdling, Head of Region, sub-Saharan Africa: "Rwanda's Information Communications and Technology landscape has significantly evolved over the last few years. Our role as a trusted advisor will see the deployment of services such as e-health, e-education, e-government, smart utilities and cybersecurity protection, to fully leverage the infrastructure investment and empower people to reach their full potential. Our vision of a Networked Society in Africa is being actualised through this and we are happy to be able to support Rwanda on this exciting journey."

The partnership will be a long-term collaboration between Ericsson and the respective government agencies involved; focused on building capacity and eventually being handed over to the government along with selected private sector players. Based on the leading role that Rwanda plays in the Smart Africa Alliance, this collaboration will establish a public private partnership model that can benefit other members of the alliance.

Upon the finalisation of scoping the required solutions, all involved parties will jointly agree on the investment business models that best suit what is required to most efficently roll out this new vision. Additionally, the inclusion of outside participation from third party investors, will be discussed and finalised.

Ericsson at Mobile World Congress 2015

During Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain, Ericsson is showing world-leading technology, service capabilities, and innovations. The Networked Society is transforming entire industries. ICT tools have become fundamental everyday resources for businesses, people and society. We lead the way with software, services, and hardware solutions that drive development in mobility, broadband and cloud, creating the foundation for new eco-systems, and transformation across industries. The change that transformation brings is in the hands of everyone. That is why we at Mobile World Congress this year will talk about how we enable change-makers in the Networked Society.

You can find us at MWC in Hall 2, Stand 2N60. Follow us during the event using @Ericsson and join the discussion using #MWC15. Insights from our experts and Networked Society evangelists are also published on our blog during the event.