The CAD Insider

SolidWorks Visits Rwanda - A Picture Journey

 KIGALI, Rwanda, May 7, 2010 - A SolidWorks /Innovate3D delegation recently toured through Rwanda. Representing SolidWorks was Jeff Ray, CEO, his wife Cindy, Mark Neill, SolidWorks general counsel, his wife Amy. Representing Innovate3D was yours truly, whose primary goal was to visit Gasabo 3D, the Rwandan company doing the SolidWorks 2D to 3D production for us. SolidWorks has been a staunch supporter of Gasabo3D since a visit by Rwanda's president to the US several years ago.

Gasabo 3D CEO John Rugamba gives an overview to SolidWorks. From left, Cindy Ray, Amy Neill, Jeff Ray, Mark Neill and John.

The SolidWorks contingent poses with the Gasabo 3D team.

What exams? Jeff Ray at Kigali Institute of Technology presents on entrepreneurship and how Rwanda might build an manufacturing economy -- in the middle of exam week. President Paul Kagame (who watches from walls everywhere) seems to approve.

Jeff Ray with Kigali Institute of Technology Rector Professor John Mushana. Not one to waste an opportunity, KIST asked for 70 additional licenses of SolidWorks (for a total to 100) and got them!

Females are recruited at KIST. Rwanda is making great strides in getting women into top government posts but students at both KIST and ETO Gitarama remain so predominately male I thought the schools were boys only.

What looks to be a giant roll of toilet paper is, in fact, a giant roll of toilet paper. KIST graduates struggle to find jobs, as industry is still not widespread. In this lab, students are encouraged to learn to use machines that can be used to take raw or processed material to make finished products, and hopefully hatch entrepreneurs  -- not employees.

 Bridge models, typical of engineering course, lie on the floor of an otherwise deserted dynamics lab

The bio professors must know the right people -- the biology lab is well equipped with new equipment including chromosome analysis.

 More computers than students? A World Bank grant allowed KIST to buy 300 new Dell computers. 

I ordered that? Author Roopinder Tara gets a taste of the local specialty (bugari in Rwanda, fufu sombe in other parts of Africa), made from the leaves (green) and roots (doughy ball) of the cassava plant.

Beautiful and tranquil settings mask a most gruesome event. The flame at the center of the pool burns for a 100 days a year, the duration of the Rwanda's genocide. With 800,000 killed, it it holds the ignominious record for the most brutally efficient executed genocide ever.

 The remains of 250,000 are said to be buried here.

 
The Genocide Memorial is funded entirely by donations. If the donation box was at the exit, it would have been full, especially with dollars and French francs, as people from those countries are made to feel particularly guilty of not intervening during the genocide.

 A visit to ETO Gitarama, an technology oriented secondary school.

SolidWorks Visits ETO Gitarama in Rwanda

Ask a CAD insider to pair SolidWorks to an educational institution and most would pick MIT. After all, founder Jon Hirschtick graduated from MIT. To this day MIT remains a font of talent for SolidWorks.

Less public is SolidWorks' connection to a school the world has never heard of, a secondary school tucked away in the countryside of Rwanda, at the end of a bumpy dirt road, where technology means laying brick and repairing automobiles.

Every SolidWorks CEO has found a way to support ETO Gitarama, be it with software licenses, training... even cash. A little bit goes a long way in this part of the world. A computer is a path to a modern world in a country where the most of the population lives on family farms.

 
It's many to a computer at ETO Gitarama, a secondary school an hour and a half drive from Kigali. In use is SolidWorks 2006 on a machine with 256MB RAM. The school offers hope of a professional career. In a country where over 90% of the population exists on subsistence farming.

Last week, a  SolidWorks delegation, including CEO Jeff Ray, paid a visit to the school. The school had been waiting. School uniforms were pressed and spotless. Student groups in one room after another proudly gave well rehearsed presentations of their projects. Those who weren't presenting gaped. The whole faculty were waiting for us in a formal conference, introducing themselves and their programs, but also entering pleas for computers, books... anything would help.. they seemed to have so little and each and everything would be so gratefully received.

The spotlight seemed to turn on Jeff. Showing all the signs of a master statesman, Jeff was generous in response, pledging an upgrade of software, more training, maybe even books... but not promising anything he could not deliver. Does he hear requests for unending help every day, I thought.

 
SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray holds Rwanda tech school in rapt attention

We weren't done. A grand assembly had been called in our honor. The entire student body had gathered in the main hall. Noisy and boisterous, they hushed as we filed in and were seated. The director of the school introduced each of us to the students. Jeff was called up for an impromptu Q&A with the students. His microphone is not working. In the split second it take me to break into a sweat, Jeff has already managed the disaster. Rather than sheepishly tapping the mike and waiting for a replacement (yes, that is how I would have died) he has already raised his voice and waded into the midst of the students. He proceeds to answer a series of questions from several students. What does it take to ruffle this guy?

We were treated to traditional music and dance, performed by the students. In yet another surprise, members of our delegation were requested and all complied willingly -- except for yours truly who felt obliged to record the event.

The Day in Pictures

 
 
CEO Jeff Ray is welcomed to ETO Gitarama, a technology-centered secondary school in Rwanda's countryside.

Students show Jeff their projects.

 ETO Gitarama student are not camera shy.

SolidWorks CEO Visits Rwanda Genocide Memorial

KIGALI, Rwanda, May 4, 2010- SolidWork's CEO Jeff Ray visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre today, honoring the memory of 1 million killed in 1994 as the minority Tutsi were beset upon by pro-Hutu forces. 

Jeff is in Rwanda to visit Gasabo 3D, a joint venture with the Rwandan government, SolidWorks and Innnovte3D (a division of TenLinks, Inc.), as well as representatives of technology institutions (KIST, ETO Gitarama) and government agencies (Rwandan Development Board), among others.

SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray places flowers to honor the dead at Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, where remains of 250,000 are buried. Jeff's visit coincides with Rwanda's annual 100 days or mourning.

The Memorial Centre marks the grave of 250,000 of the victims of the genocide. A museum not only vividly describe the Rwanda genocide, but also the Holocaust and other genocides.

Asked for comment afterward, Jeff had this to say: "I am overwhelmed with emotions -- horror at the brutality and confusion over how neighbors could do this to each other and that we in the global community stood by and let this happen. Still, there is a sense of hope for the future as Rwandans have set an example for the world in forgiveness and reconciliation."