Podcasts Culture NewThink - Radical Ideas for Development in Frontier Markets How smart cities can transform economic development in Africa

How smart cities can transform economic development in Africa

Published: July 23, 2020, 9:28 a.m.

Aubrey Hruby and Gyude Moore are joined by Tesi Rusagara, Managing Director and Kigali Innovation City and Artem Ermrolaev Chief Information Officer for the Moscow Government Minister, and President at NGO "Smart Cities" to discuss how smart city technology can create jobs and generate economic activity in Africa's largest cities.

Tesi Rusagara leads Kigali Innovation City, whose mission is to nurture and accelerate Rwanda’s innovation ecosystem to position Rwanda as a pan-African hub. She was previously with Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco advising financial services clients on digital transformation, growth strategy and divestitures. Tesi has also worked in the President of Rwanda’s Strategy and Policy Unit where she focused on technology, urbanization and private sector development. Prior to this role, she worked for Bank of Kigali, Rwanda’s largest commercial bank. Tesi holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate school of Business and a Bachelor of Business Science in Finance from the University of Cape Town.

Artem Ermrolaev is currently launching a new project, NGO “Smart cities”, aggregating his expertise in smart cities and connecting activities from government, consulting, business and academy to share the experience on city management and citizen engagement, and to provide some visionary insights that can be applied by cities and companies. Previously, in 2011 Artem headed the newly established IT Department as the Minister of IT of the Moscow Government. Artem coordinated building the ICT infrastructure for e-health, e-education, public services delivery, and citizen engagement projects. He was also responsible for designing Moscow Digital strategy 2030 aimed at completing digitalization in Moscow.