The New Times

The Rwanda Information Communication Technology Association (RICTA) targets to register about 5000 web domain names by 2016, following the re-delegation of Rwanda’s Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), “.rw” from Belgium a couple of months ago.

RICTA late last year gained all the rights from Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to manage the government’s web which was formerly managed in Belgium by Frederic Gregoire, a Belgian entrepreneur, under his Swiss-based company NIC Congo – Interpoint.

Traders in the country will begin to receive training on the usage of electronic tax payment platforms in a move aimed at easing the process of tax collection.

Starting in May, the campaign by Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) and the Private Sector Federation (PSF) will be geared towards helping traders become familiar with automated tax payment which is a new phenomenon in the economy.

Microsoft Corporation, one of the world's leading software companies, last week launched its new initiative, dubbed '4Afrika' in Kigali.

The goal of the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative is to disseminate affordable smart devices built specifically for Africa with an AppFactory aimed at encouraging application development by Africans for Africans.

The initiative will also run an education platform aimed at developing technical and entrepreneurial skills as a means to improve employability especially among the youth.

Within a period of four months since Rwanda's Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), ".rw" was formally re-delegated from Belgium, more companies/individuals have started registering their websites under the '.rw' domain.

Previously Rwandans had opted for .com, .org, .uk, because ".rw" was managed from Belgium and Rwandans were not aware of the procedures involved to access it.

The City of Kigali, on Wednesday, donated a flat screen television set and a desktop computer to each of the 50 villages in the outskirts of the city to help the citizens remain updated.

The gadgets are to be placed under what is being termed as "Knowledge Room" in each village, and will be accessed by all free of charge.

The benefitting villages were drawn from the three urban districts; Gasabo (20 villages), Nyarugenge (14 villages) and Kicukiro where the programme was launched with the distribution of the facilities to 16 villages.

On Monday 4th Febrary, the government officially launched nationwide registration of SIM cards, an exercise expected to last six months.

The event that saw telecom staff members, clad in their respective company uniforms emblazoned with messages calling for subscribers to register their SIM cards, started with an awareness campaign march from City centre roundabout to Kigali Serena Hotel for formal launch.

Sadheesh Kumar, a Kigali-based Asian businessman and Christian Kamanzi, a university student, were the latest winners of exotic cows in the ongoing Airtel Birahebuje promotion.

At least 3,200 teachers who, last year, completed a one-year ICT training course conducted by Rwanda Education Board (REB) will, this academic year be deployed to various schools countrywide.

The teachers will have the responsibility to train other teachers from their respective schools, a strategy the government has designed to promote and build teachers capacity to effectively teach computer skills or ICT.

Dr. Evode Mukama, the Head of ICT in Education department at REB, told The New Times on Tuesday that REB will assign 120 teachers in every district.

Microsoft has announced that the newest version of its flagship product, MS Windows 8, will also be in Rwanda’s main language, Kinyarwanda.

Microsoft said in a statement that MS Windows 8 is available in 14 new languages, bringing the total number of languages supported to 109. The US software giant released Window 8 in October last year and has since been working on producing the software in different languages to cover the global market.

The government will this year rollout a massive literacy awareness campaign to promote and build citizens' capacity and knowledge in ICT.

Spearheaded by the Ministry of Youth and ICT, in collaboration with other stakeholders in ICT promotion, the five-year campaign will be launched today in Rulindo district, Northern Province.

"We realised that despite the registered progress in ICT infrastructure development, there is still need to enable citizens use and exploit what we have been able to develop," said Didier Nkurikiyimfura, the director-general of ICT.