Rwanda’s Irene Niyombaza, an Information Communication and Technology (ICT) expert was yesterday honoured by the United States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI) as Graduate number 8.000.

According to the Chairman of USTTI, Ambassador Michael R. Gardner, the 27-year old Infrastructure Officer at the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), was praised for her commitment to building and regulating Rwanda’s growing ICT Infrastructure.

"In selecting Irene for this honor, I did so because she is an enlightened female engineer and also because President Paul Kagame is providing brilliant leadership in the ICT arena for the citizens of Rwanda who will benefit so much from the President’s ICT vision. 

"We also believe that Rwanda, under President Paul Kagame’s strong leadership, can become the regulatory role model for ICT deployment throughout sub-Sahara Africa,” Gardner said.

According to a statement from the Institute, during her three week visit to the US, Niyonambaza will participate in several USTTI tuition-free training courses sponsored by Verizon, AT&T, Packet Clearing House, Qualcomm and Intel. 

Sponsored by the USAID, the institute enabled the expert to attend the training courses focused on ICT Policy and Mobile Broadband technologies.

This capacity building collaborative effort was launched in 1982 with a view of sharing the United States’ communications and technological advances on a global basis.

The statement also adds that this is done by providing a comprehensive array of tuition-free ICT training courses for qualified women and men who design, regulate, and manage the communications infrastructures in developing countries.

Since its inception, USTTI has provided tuition-free ICT, satellite and broadcast training to more than 8,000 women and men in 168 developing countries.

USTTI is a non-profit public-private partnership between senior federal officials and leaders of the U.S. information and communication technology (ICT) and broadcast industries.

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