Electricity Expansion: Rwandan Catalyst for Skills Acquisition and Graduates Inclusiveness

As a developing economy, Rwanda has been exploring transitioning to being a technologically driven and sustainable economy. Moreover, research on economic growth have focused on the need to improve human capacity potential within increasing demands of climate change activists but there remains a theoretic and practical lacuna in including renewable energy resources in economic growth and expansion of electricity access. Therefore, it is necessary to study the impact of competent skill acquisition and graduate employment market on the interaction mix between economic growth and the expansion of energy access in Rwanda, particularly finding out the problems advancing the non-inclusiveness of engineering graduates, which result to high rate of unemployment and diversions, especially for the graduates specializing in energy fields. As a result, the following open questions were raised with variations 1; how did employees penetrate energy-sector labour market opportunity in Rwanda? 2; what influenced employee’s decision in pursuing a career in Rwanda’s labour market, 3; what were the specific employee competent skills that enabled smooth transition in energy-sector employment after graduation and the ones required to maintain their current positions? 4; what specific competent skills are required for inclusivity of today's engineering graduates in energy sector employment market? The study is qualitative and it uses the exploratory research design. It is based on the growth pole theory employing snowball/chain purposeful sampling technique, whereby key informants in Rwanda energy sector were located. Data was specifically collected from these primary sources through semi-structured interviews and documentary method. Interview data and text from documents were inductively analysed. The study generally recommended institution or program for connecting learning institutions, industry and employment market in the distributed and renewable energy resources to promote competent skills acquisition, competition and improve graduates’ inclusiveness in the expansion of electricity access, thereby leading to economic growth in Rwanda

Design of Edge-controlled Multisensor Autonomous Robotic Pathfinder with Active Quadrupedal-wheel Drive Suspension System

This paper introduces an edge-controlled autonomous robot with a gyro-stabilized active suspension system in form of a hybrid quadrupedal wheel drive mechanism, capable of detecting free pathways with an angular resolution of 1 degree and steering the robot in that direction. This features computer-aided prototyping of the robot as a complete multi-sensory mechatronic system. Also, several algorithmic models were used in developing the robot’s software, which includes suspension control and pathfinding algorithms. The pathfinding algorithm computes the direction of the farthest exit point by recursive sorting and caching of values and addresses of array elements. Special performance indicators such as mechanical endurance, sensor accuracy, and sensitivity highlight important aspects of this work. Hence, the concept in this paper serves as a model for robotizing off-road vehicles for various applications