GSMA Director General Mats Granryd
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) Director General Mats Granryd, has commended Rwanda for promoting adoption of technology and access to broadband internet, especially the capacity to take up 4G internet.
Granryd made the remarks on October 17, during a media briefing at the grand opening of the 2023 Mobile World Congress (MWC) which was opened in Kigali today by President Paul Kagame.
The MWC Kigali 2023 returned to the Kigali – Rwanda bringing together over 2,500 participants including policymakers, global business leaders, vendors and innovators for three days of discussion on innovations in mobile technology and Africa’s rapidly evolving connectivity ecosystem.
Granryd explained that the choice of Rwanda hosting the event, despite having other global options to host the event, was because Rwanda as a country that is doing great strides to adopt new technology to bring out 4G capacity, home to plenty of operators, and a government that is fluent in telecom language.
“So, we think this (in Rwanda) is a good place to be, though it may not be forever,” Granryd said.
Rwanda is currently considered an ICT hub in Africa with an Innovation Hub (Kigali Innovation City)-with an impressive budget of $2 billion, and poised to become Africa’s epicenter for tech and innovation; alongside broad investment made in fibre optic internet across the country, and a 96% 4G internet coverage and plans to take on the 5G internet by 2024.
Granryd stated that this year’s MWC will register a 25% growth compared to the previous years with many investors, exhibitions and side events.
This year’s MWC Kigali is co-located with two other events – the Africa HealthTech Summit and Smart Africa.
The HealthTech Summit which will showcase the power of digital innovation in Africa’s healthcare sector through an agenda of panel sessions taking place over three days; while Smart Africa will convene an alliance of 33 African countries, public sector organisations and private sector players focused on accelerating the socio-economic development of the continent.
