The Third International Conference on Networking and Communications, organized by The Department of Networking and Communications, School of Computing, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India with technical sponsorship from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE Madras) Section and in technical partnership with Energy Sustainability Focus Group (ESFG) and Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah (UMPSA) Malaysia, brought together some of the sharpest minds in networking and communications research. From Malaysia to Saudi Arabia, France to Poland, Italy to Armenia, speakers logged in from universities across four continents.
When Prof. Damien Hanyurwimfura's turn came, Kigali joined the call during a 2 day hydrid conference from 7th to 8th April at Chennai, India.
Representing the College of Science and Technology at the University of Rwanda as the acting Director of African Centre of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT) and the Principal Investigator of Transformative Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation Lab (TAIRI Lab), Prof. Damien spoke about TAIRI Lab, a growing hub of applied research pushing the boundaries of what technology can do for a developing nation, Prof Damien delved into IoT edge intelligence which is advantageous because it has low latency and reduced badndwidth compared to cloud computing architectures.

Prof Hanyurwimfura Damien message went beyond the lab. He painted a broader picture of Rwanda's national ambitions: smart cities being designed with connectivity at their core, IoT sensors threading intelligence through urban infrastructure, and AI being deployed to do something as urgent as saving lives on the road ,analyzing traffic patterns, flagging risk, and helping reduce the accidents that claim too many lives across the continent. Re igniting the concept of from systems to ecosystems requiring cross domain intelligence across health care, energy , agriculture among others where distributed systems are deployed and this fosters faster responsiveness as well as continuous learning and adoption to make the whole ecosystem more coherent.

For his fellow panelists ; professors and doctors from Sunway University, King Abdulaziz University, the University of Derby, CentraleSupélec, Swinburne, Deakin, Wrocław, Florence, and Yerevan, it was a reminder that innovation does not belong to any one geography.
The conference ended as it began: with a muted microphone and a goodbye wave. But Prof. Damien had made his point. Rwanda was not just attending the conversation. It was contributing to it.