President Paul Kagame yesterday visited Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, the main city in the state of Massachusetts, United States. Based in the Cambridge area, MIT is a world-class institution, and, according to the information on its website, its mission is “to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century”. MIT’s five schools and one college encompass 34 academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programmes, as well as numerous interdisciplinary centres, laboratories and programmes. Kagame is in Boston to attend the second Rwanda Day due today and tomorrow, after last year’s Rwanda Day event in Chicago, the capital of Illinois, another American state. More than 2,000 people are expected at the event, which has mainly attracted the Rwandan Diaspora community from across North America and Europe, as well as friends of Rwanda. President Kagame is expected to address the gathering tomorrow. Rwanda has a longstanding relationship with several US higher learning institutions, with some of them opening campuses in Kigali over the last one year. Boston is home to Partners in Health, an organisation which supports Rwanda’s health system, and has greatly impacted the lives of ordinary citizens, particularly in the countryside.
