Twelve delegates from the Rwandan government recently completed a digitally transformative workshop at the Alibaba Group headquarters in Hangzhou, China.
Dubbed the ‘New Economy Workshop’, the 4-day workshop is the first of its kind and aims to connect participants with Alibaba executives across multiple businesses to “learn about the transformative impact and promise of a new digital economy as well as how to drive economic growth by accelerating digital finance, logistics, e-commerce and big data industries.”
Attendees learned about FinTech, logistics, eCommerce and big data technologies.
This workshop is the latest initiative in a recent bilateral cooperation between Rwandan president Paul Kagame and the Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma when the latter visited the East African country in October 2018.
Over the years, Rwanda's president Kagame has been hailed as an agent of change and praised for innovative initiatives that have seen the country become quite prominent in technology and innovation in the continent.
Angel Zhao, President of Alibaba’s Globalization Leadership Group said the workshop aimed to provide capacity to Rwanda’s policy makers making them advocates of digital transformation and the country’s technology entrepreneur.
Following a first African trip to Kenya and Rwanda in 2017, Jack Ma had developed an interest in the continent.
Ma’s earlier Africa visit was in a bid to support entrepreneurship and seek investment opportunities. And reports show this 2017 visit coincided with China’s growing influence and foreign direct investment in Africa.
