Outsourcing Journal Editors 
Rwanda has, in recent years, been working on a “Digital Exports strategy” that would see it become one of Africa’s Technology Hub. To achieve this strategy it is understood that positioning Rwanda as a dependable and reliable destination for offshore business, mainly in ITES – BPO and KPO.
Read this and more about Rwanda’s ICT sector in the Outsourcing Destination Guide Rwanda, produced and published by the independent German Outsourcing Association. (www.outsourcing-verband.org)
Because of this strategy, the BPO sector in Rwanda can be assured full support from the government of Rwanda, which has invested heavily in Education, especially in IT and Science related programs, as well as investments in critical infrastructure required for the making Rwanda an attractive destination for ITES BPO jobs from offshore clients. Among the heavy investments made so far in infrastructure is the availability of good and reliable Internet connectivity, paramount for any business conducted online.
With this strategy, Rwanda has some solid basis for growth. As one of the fastest-growing African countries in the field of ICT, Rwanda provides some key conducive facts that make it an ideal destination for ITES – BPO:
• 2,500 km of fiber optic cable laid out and covering almost the whole country
• State of the art Tier 3 Data Center
• Innovation Labs (KLab and FabLab)
• International Universities (CMU, AIMS, ALU)
• Ranked number 2 in Doing Business in Africa (WB, 2019)+
• Ranked number 4 most transparent government in Africa by Transparency International
These facts above make doing business and running a business in Rwanda easier with relatively predictable results, and very few unwelcome surprises. Generally, the recruiting landscape in Rwanda is very rich and diversified. From world-renowned universities locally established, such as Carnegie Mellon University, Africa Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and the African Leadership University (ALU), to competent and regionally acclaimed local universities and regional universities. The software developer talent can also be found from a high number of software developers that have studied and worked in developed countries in the US, Canada, Europe, China, India, Russia and Japan. On top of this, each year locally-based institutions are graduating over one thousand students in Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology related fields. Of these 1,000 engineers, many have thought long and hard and have, in many cases set up small startups to implement some of the ideas geared towards serving their communities. Because of this, many would-be software developer candidates already possess a relatively complete view of the software development cycle and usually tend to hit the ground running when first hired and assigned to a particular project.
On top of the technical skills available locally, most Rwandan engineers tend to fully be bilingual in English and French, making communication with clients relatively easy, and assuring that not much would
be lost in translation, especially during the early stages of development, when the general understanding of the project is not yet fully grasped.
WiredIn is a Rwandan IT firm that specializes in software development and is an early pioneer in IT outsourcing and off-shore software development business in Rwanda. Since 2014, the company has offered a wide range of high-quality services in the design, development, delivery and maintenance of software products in a number of countries around the world, mainly in Japan, Rwanda, Benin, Mozambique, the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, France. Our key market advantage is the ability to leverage a wealth of experience in this sector, a network of local and international partners, and a very competitive pricing strategy to deliver quality software solutions. The company was incorporated in Rwanda in January 2014 by two like minded founders, one Rwandan and the other Japanese, both software engineers by training and profession. The founders had been collaborating on a number of software projects for a number of clients in Japan, since 2011. And as the number of projects increased it was quickly apparent that more developers would be needed in order to continue supporting the growing number of clients that were starting to trust outsourcing to Rwanda, as a viable and sustainable way to meet their software development needs. Fast forward to 2020, today WiredIn is almost 7 years and prides itself with a competent group of 15 software developers and software testers all based in Rwanda, along side a team of 4 “bridge engineers” and Quality Assurance team based in WiredIn-Japan in our Tokyo office. WiredIn recruits most of its software developers from Rwanda, but has a few developers from other countries on the African continent, mainly from Ethiopia, Burundi and Uganda. Most of our
developers have Masters’ degrees in Computer Science and Software Development or related IT degrees.
Some of our most senior developers have completed their Masters’ program from Carnegie Mellon University – Africa campus based in Kigali, Rwanda. Other senior developers were beneficiaries of the Abe Initiative Scholarship program, which provides a 2 year Masters’ program at selected universities in Japan. The need for recruiting from highly skilled candidates is so that WiredIn can maintain the highest level of quality for our clients around the world. WiredIn’s clients come mainly from Rwanda, Benin and Mozambique in Africa, in Europe we have clients in the Netherlands, Germany and France, we also have clients in the United States of America, while the bulk of our sales still comes from our existing and new clients in Japan.
Read this and more about Rwanda’s ICT sector in the Outsourcing Destination Guide Rwanda, produced and published by the independent German Outsourcing Association. (www.outsourcing-verband.org)
