The Mastercard Foundation, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the government of Rwanda, has announced a $275.7 million investment to strengthen Africa’s technology, innovation, and research ecosystem.

The investment will expand the engineering and technology, research, and entrepreneurship programs at CMU’s Kigali location, and includes $100.7 million from the foundation to establish CMU-Africa’s Center for the Inclusive Digital Transformation of Africa and a $175 million endowment to perpetually fund CMU-Africa. Specifically, the partnership will expand instructional capacity, increase the annual cohort of students, provide student financial assistance and scholarship support, ensure programs recruit and provide opportunities for marginalized groups, and pilot programs for English language immersion. In addition, the partnership will work to strengthen Africa’s research, entrepreneurship, and innovation ecosystem more broadly by establishing a network of higher education institutions to work with the private sector and governments for inclusive digital transformation, supporting universities to deliver high-quality engineering and technology education, driving inclusive digital transformation, and increasing digital knowledge creation through training, seed funding, and collaboration opportunities for researchers.

The initiative builds on a previous partnership between the Mastercard Foundation and CMU that includes the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program.

“The key to creating opportunities for promising African students from all socioeconomic backgrounds is access to education in the high-tech fields that are driving the economies of the future,” said CMU president Farnam Jahanian. “We are grateful to the Mastercard Foundation for their partnership with CMU over the past six years to help empower the next generation of Africa’s leaders, and we are delighted to be expanding our partnership even further. With this new collaboration, we will accelerate our shared mission and provide life-changing educational and career experiences for students across the continent.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/zeljkosantrac)