Rwanda launches Icyerekezo satellite, Internet connectivity possible for remote schools

The government of Rwanda has taken a beautiful step to address the challenge that many schools in rural areas confront. Since the internet connectivity in many schools mainly in the rural parts is a big issue in the East African country, the government tied up with a United Kingdom-based company, OneWeb and launched the first-ever satellite on Wednesday, February 27 that will connect remote schools to the internet.

The highly anticipated satellite was sent into orbit from a spaceport on the Atlantic coast of French Guiana at 23:38. The spaceport is mostly utilized by the European Union. French Guiana was chosen as rockets usually launch over open water around the Equator and to the east.

The director general for digital transformation in the ministry, Kalema Gordon said at a press conference on the launch in Rwanda’s capital city Kigali that the satellite was successfully sent to space. The successful deployment of the first Rwandan satellite in history, ‘Icyerekezo’ (vision), is an exciting historical milestone, Kalema added.

The satellite will allow the government of Rwanda to connect more schools across the nation with the internet and this ensures better education services and new opportunities for the innovators including socio-economic development. The first school to get access to this satellite internet is St. Pierre Nkombo secondary school. Since this school is located on Nkombo Island in Lake Kivu, it was extremely costly and even inefficient to connect it to standard fibre connection. That’s the reason a satellite was considered the perfect solution to provide internet connectivity.

On the other hand, Rwanda also has a plan to send another satellite into the orbit before the completion of 2019 in partnership with the government of Japan.

#Rwanda and @OneWeb partner to launch #Icyerekezo satellite (named by students from Nkombo Island), to connect schools in remote areas to the internet. Please watch the launch live @rbarwanda on Wednesday 27/02/2019, at 23:37. #InternetForSchools pic.twitter.com/4SnQvMKncD

— MINICT | Rwanda (@RwandaICT) February 26, 2019

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