Machines continue to play a huge role in providing essential services, especially in the health sector. For example, the use of robots in the fight against Covid-19 in 2020 helped to reduce contact between medical personnel and patients, thus limiting the risk of healthcare workers contracting the virus. The Anti-Epidemic Robots named Akazuba, Ikizere, Mwiza, Ngabo, and Urumuri, enabled the screening of temperature, monitoring of patient status, and keeping of medical records for Covid-19 patients. Experts say that Rwanda has the potential to progress in robotics in diverse sectors such as agriculture, entertainment, electronics manufacturing, construction, metal and machinery, and more. Christine Niyizamwiyitira, an IT expert and telecommunication engineer, noted that there is a possibility of progress in robotics in Rwanda as the profession would take the country to a revolutionised industry. For instance, the manpower needed that would take many months can be accomplished in a few hours by robots. ALSO READ: Are we prepared for the era of robots The country is still at the prototyping level, and even very few schools have access to that prototyping. For those who have a chance for prototyping, they need more equipped labs or incubation centres for production and the introduction of mechatronics programmes at tertiary education, she said. She further stated that the future of robots in Rwanda is bright, as there is a possibility of manufacturing robots in the country, especially mounting and programming, with only a few components and spare parts imported from elsewhere. “Being that the mass production is usually expensive locally but with big local industries, manufacturing, mounting, and programming can happen here,” Niyizamwiyitira said. Niyizamwiyitira explained that promoting robotics in Rwanda requires understanding the needs of different sectors, for example, in agriculture, harvesting can be done by robots. Environment monitoring and response, health facilities supported by robots, delivering blood as drones do in Rwanda, and a robot tutor used to teach numeracy and literacy, or in firefighting, can all be very useful. Niyizamwiyitira pointed out that there are success stories in both developed and developing countries; most of the work is done by robots, for example, robots for agri-tech to alleviate the farm labour shortage in rice and cotton harvesting in India. “Once the use of robotics in Rwanda is adopted, it will increase productivity across all sectors. This will eventually create opportunities for IT innovators as they will be programming those robotics for different purposes. In the world, it will upsurge the economic growth,” she said. Ildephonse Mungwarakarama, the managing director of Creativity Lab, an education platform that offers innovative teaching and equipment to build students' skills in robotics, coding, engineering, and artificial intelligence, said that there is some improvement in daily activities with the use of robots. ALSO READ: Experts: Use of robots in schools can inspire innovative solutions He stated that the curriculum initiated by the government, which promotes technology starting from the primary school level, is nurturing future technologists, demonstrating that Rwanda will have talented engineers in the future. “The campaign to promote technology and the capacity of future engineers in our communities gives hope that the sector will be developed, and there is a confidence that the talented engineers will export their skills to other countries,” he added. Mungwarakarama is optimistic that every sector in the future will be able to benefit from robotics, enabling Rwandans to have access to all kinds of services. Dr Damien Hanyurwimfura, the Associate Professor and Acting Director of the African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT) at the University of Rwanda, said that in order to boost the use of robotics in Rwanda, people ought to be trained to understand their use and importance. He further noted that it is necessary to also have infrastructure that facilitates the use of robots and, most importantly, reduces the price of robotics products and raw materials. “Manufacturing our robots would require facilitating entrepreneurs or other companies to invest in robotics, and include robotics curriculum in schools and universities. “Robots are expected to execute services and activities, especially the risky ones, to save people’s lives, and will also bring improvement in the fast delivery of services. Repeated activities will be easily done and completed by robots, allowing them to concentrate on other activities,” he said.
