A year ago, before his first trip to Africa, Jam Nelavai, the Chief Executive Officer of TechAffinity, had never heard about Rwanda.

Now, however, Nelavai alongside partners have announced the launch of a software solutions company with an aim to integrate strategy and software engineering skills to achieve digital transformation.

TechAffinity, is a US-based software solutions company that currently trains enthusiasts in different development centers from India and the United States to deliver solutions for startups, small businesses, and medium enterprises among others. Rwanda becomes its third home.

The development, said Nelavai, testifies the firm’s plans for the local tech ecosystem with an ambitious goal to be leading technology employers in Rwanda for local, regional and global markets.

"We said to ourselves that lets do something odd and enter the African market. Couple of my team went to different countries but during these challenging times with restrictions by the pandemic, we wanted a safe country where the government is pro-business and pro-employee capacity building,” he said.

With a current staff of 35 employees, Nelavai said that the target is to achieve 100 target in a span of one year.

"The hunger that people have in this country is also another factor. The journey has been smooth,” he added.

Joseph Semafari, founder of SolveIT was named the country representative of the firm.

Crucial partnership

Presiding over the launch, Minister of ICT and Innovation Paula Ingabire reiterated that Rwanda has set an ambitious vision to lead it to Africa’s leading innovation and technology hub, something she said can be achieved through such partnerships.

"We also intend to attract global technology firms to come and do business in Rwanda, benefit from the young growing talent that we have in the country that is being nurtured across different education institutions, benefit from the infrastructure that has been rolled up but also benefit from the hospitable investment and business ecosystem.”

Minister Ingabire maintained that the government intentionally positions itself to attract investors not only as an ideal market but also as a source of innovation that can eventually export technology products and services to the rest of the continent.

For instance, the tech talent being developed locally is not only composed of Rwandans but also aims at a world class pan-African base.

Ingabire named different institutions that attract Pan African talent, attracting best of minds from across the continent to benefit from education that is being provided from institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and African Leadership University (ALU).

ICT and Innovation Minister, Paula Ingabire, speaks at the launch event on Monday.

"All of these are helping us to groom the much needed talent that will really contribute to expanding the businesses that you are setting here.”

"As we pursue to shift from the tech consumer market to creators and producers of tech solutions we believe that there is not just the appetite for tech products and solutions to the continent but to actually have the right skill set to produce them.”

Companies such as TechAffinity, according to Ingabire, are critical to Rwanda’s ambitions by the complementary work done to build the right technology solutions and also for the targeted export market.

Beneficiaries weigh in

Several beneficiaries, most of them engineers, welcomed the move to set up a software development center, particularly being exposed to world-class skills.

Pacifique Linda Ikirezi, a trainee in UI Designer, said that being employed at the firm is like a dream come true.

"Working for TechAffinity has been a dream come true, one of the things I most like here is working in a community of like-minded people”

Lambert Mukwiye, a Visual Designer, described it as an opportunity to grow "my career as UX/UI Designer to global standards with multiple working disciplines to make tech solutions more usable.”

TechAffinity Rwanda opened with 35 staff, and targets to grow to 100 within the first year.