Rwanda leads the pack in wi-fi race

It's A scene any visitor would be surprised to see deep in central Africa: a tech-savvy consumer sitting in a restaurant and surfing with a smartphone, tablet and laptop.

Rwanda is reinventing itself as a regional hi-tech hub by introducing free citywide and, eventually nationwide, wireless connectivity.

"I came to use the internet. Sometimes I download video and books," said South Korean development worker Lee Il-mo, a resident of the Rwandan capital Kigali for the past two years.

"Before, I went to restaurants or coffee bars and I had to buy a drink, but here it's a free area," he said, sitting in Kigali City Tower - a zone slated as the city's new tech hub and one of the first steps of the so-called 'Smart Kigali' project.

Last month the government announced that it had started to cover the capital with wireless hotspots.

This was the first step of a plan to provide wi-fi coverage to all schools and public buildings, markets, bus stations and hotels in the city and, in the long term, to the entire country.

Information Technology Minister Jean Philibert Nsengimana said he wanted to "accelerate growth of the internet sector" and attract more investors.

"Connectivity is one of the most important draws for business in this, the age of the digital economy."

In June, Rwanda signed up South Korea's KT Corporation to build a 4G network that it wants delivered to 95% of the country, up from the estimated 10% who currently have 3G access.

"Broadband access," said Nsengimana, "has to be considered as an essential, just like water and electricity."

President Paul Kagame and his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, which has dominated Rwanda since ousting Hutu extremists and ending the genocide nearly 20 years ago, is attempting to push through a dramatic transformation from trauma to economic success.

The country is ranked as one of the least corrupt in Africa, and the World Bank's ease-of-doing-business index for 2013 ranked Rwanda 52nd among 185 countries, the third best in sub-Saharan Africa.

But the government now wants to push economic growth to 11.5% for each of the next five years, drive poverty from 45% to below 30% and reach middle-income status by 2020 - no easy task for a mainly agricultural economy.

And for the 'Smart Kigali' plan to succeed, the private sector must stay on board.

"Smart Kigali is a test. It is giving people a taste of better things to come," said Alex Ntale, director of the Rwandan Chamber of Information and Communications Technology.

"But someone has to pay for it at the end of the day," he said.

He pointed to tough digital communications competition from east Africa's largest economy Kenya, which is already ahead on mobile banking technology and is home to Intel, Google and Microsoft businesses.