With the support of the Government of Rwanda, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the Mastercard Foundation have launched a transformational investment in higher education and innovation in Africa, with the goal of creating opportunities for 10,000 young people from economically disadvantaged communities, with a focus on young women, young people with disabilities, and young people who have been forcefully displaced.
The Mastercard Foundation and CMU-Africa agreement, worth $275.7 million, will enable CMU-Africa in Kigali to dramatically increase the scope of its advanced engineering and technology programs.
The Foundation’s $175M endowment will ensure the ongoing operation of CMU-Africa.
Additionally, $100.7 million will be used to launch the Center for Africa’s Inclusive Digital Transformation at CMU-Africa.
CMU-Africa will accomplish the following thanks to this significant collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation:
Increase the capacity of instruction, including the introduction of online learning programs and a new engineering artificial intelligence degree.
Increase enrollment at CMU-Africa by more than 33% each year.
Increase support for the CMU-Africa Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program as well as additional financial aid to more CMU-Africa students. A total of 300 students will receive direct scholarship support from the cooperation.
Make sure programs target underrepresented populations, such as women, people with disabilities, and displaced people, and offer them chances.
English immersion pilot initiatives to help undergraduate students from various African universities become ready for graduate school.
The new collaboration will also improve Africa’s ecosystem for innovation, entrepreneurship, and research in general by:
Creating the environment for an inclusive digital transformation in Africa by linking together academic institutions that will collaborate with the commercial sector and governments.
Helping as many as 10 African universities improve their offerings of engineering and technology degrees to their students.
Through training, seed money, and collaboration opportunities for researchers at CMU-Africa and other partner universities, we can increase the generation of digital knowledge that will drive technology development and innovation that will create jobs.
Direct participation of CMU-Pittsburgh faculty and staff in CMU-Africa initiatives to innovate in education and contribute to the creation of the knowledge required to propel the inclusive digital transformation of Africa in industries such as agriculture, health, and finance, among others.
10,000 young people will learn the abilities to compete in the global market, create, and design new tools that address regional and global concerns, and market those products through these multiple cooperation pillars.
Read more on Tech Gist Africa:
Visa invests in the financial literacy of South Africa