When new technologies emerge, many countries hesitate. They wait for perfect rules, proven models, and total certainty. By the time they move, the opportunity has often passed.
Rwanda has often chosen a different path.
Over the past decade, the country has shown a steady willingness to test new ideas early, learn quickly, and adjust as it goes. This approach is not driven by hype or blind optimism. It rests on a simple belief: technology matters only when it solves real problems for real people.
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We have seen this mindset at work. Zipline did not arrive as a spectacle. It arrived to solve a practical problem: delivering blood and medical supplies where distance and infrastructure slowed care. Digital payments, from mobile money to newer platforms like eKash, did not eliminate cash overnight, but they made everyday transactions faster, safer, and more reliable for millions.
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The same logic is beginning to shape how artificial intelligence is used.
Last year, teams at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Rwanda Housing Authority introduced an AI agent on the national building permits platform. The system is designed to review architectural plans for compliance with building codes and zoning rules, with the aim of reducing back-and-forth and shortening approval times. It is still early, but the direction is clear: public services are starting to explore how AI can make processes faster, more consistent, and more transparent.
Beyond government, technology is also reshaping how social impact is delivered. Organisations like GiveDirectly are using digital systems to send cash directly to thousands of households, reducing overhead, cutting delays, and treating recipients with trust and dignity. Here too, technology works best when it removes friction rather than adding complexity.
What connects these examples is not the tools themselves, but the attitude behind them. Innovation is not treated as something to admire from afar. It is something to use, test, govern, and improve.
This matters now because artificial intelligence is moving from theory to infrastructure.
Much of the global debate around AI swings between extremes. Some describe it as a cure-all. Others see it as a threat to be contained. Both views miss the point. Like electricity or mobile phones before it, AI becomes useful only when applied to clear tasks and real needs.
In countries like Rwanda, the question is not whether AI is impressive. It is whether it helps people access services more easily, more fairly, and at lower cost. In banking, insurance, healthcare, education, and utilities, barriers remain stubbornly human: distance, paperwork, language, and time. Technology that reduces these barriers can have outsized impact, if it is built for local realities.
Early engagement makes that possible. Waiting for "finished” systems often means importing tools designed elsewhere, for different contexts. Engaging early allows countries to shape technology around their own needs, languages, and constraints. It also allows policymakers, builders, and institutions to learn together rather than react later.
Rwanda’s speed in updating policy is often overlooked, but it is one of its strengths. Regulation here has aimed to guide innovation rather than freeze it. That balance is difficult, but necessary. Innovation without trust fails. Trust without progress stagnates.
As a new year begins, after months in which AI has dominated headlines and debates, it is worth acknowledging the quiet confidence of those building and testing these systems on the ground. Progress does not require perfect foresight. It requires clear goals, the courage to try, and the discipline to correct course.
In 2026, the focus will move from claims to results. The test will be simple: do these systems work, and do they make everyday services easier to use and trust?
That spirit deserves recognition and our thanks.
Rèmy Muhire and Eugène Rwagasore are co-founders of Pindo, a startup technology company that specializes in Voice AI.