From Republic of Rwanda
- Name
MAGAMBO GATETE Elie - Country/ Region of Citizenship
Republic of Rwanda - Graduated from
National University of Rwanda - Department
Department of Computer Science and Communications Engineering （Master’s）
African Business Education Initiative Program by JICA
How did you find out about Waseda University?
I attended a training called web application development using Open Source for E-Government Promotion (WAO) sponsored by JICA in Okinawa, and one of the institutions we had to visit during that time was Waseda.
During the visit,we were given a lecture about History of Waseda but mostly about how Japan e-government framework evolved.
But there were other reasons I wanted to come to Japan.
I am a big fan of Dragonball Z and learned a lot about Japan from Dragonball Z. We used to watch it on a French Channel on TV in Rwanda. We also learnt about Japan history especially Meiji revolution in high school therefore got curious about it. In Rwanda, Japan is known for its high technology so its a dream come true to learn IT in Japan for me. There is a lot of speculation about Japan that everything is automated and efficient; honestly, I think it is true, my experience was beyond my expectation.
Why did you choose Waseda University?
Before I applied, I was working for a South African NPO in Rwanda that deals with health Informatics in resource challenged environments. In my daily work, i usually dealt with a lot of data that required lots of manipulation. My future plan was to pursue my studies in South Africa so I could stay close to my company because they had a wonderful team until the ABE program was announced in Rwanda by JICA. African Business Education (ABE) program was conceived as bridge between Japanese companies and African businesses through provision of scholarship where after graduation, we will become link between our organizations and Japanese companies. Not only Waseda was among my options of choice in the program but also I could apply for one of the trending subjects in IT, data mining. Even though I had a background in health informatics, this was an opportunity to learn about information science in general. All the options I could apply for were interesting but coming here in Japan would be a total life changing experience. So I decided to go for the experience as well.
How did you get information for our program?
I got most of it through the University website. I checked everything I wanted to learn about Waseda. I googled about my field of study, the labs I could join and checked their projects on their own website.
I met friends in Okinawa who introduced me to one of Waseda science and engineering graduate from Waseda who currently owns a company in Takadanobaba. I asked him for some information too. He is one of the rare people I’ve met in Japan who actually started their own company after Graduation whereas many people here have a sense of joining large companies after graduation. I am still in touch with him.
Did you have any concerns before coming to Japan?
Not specific concerns, but actually I wasn’t expecting my field of study to be that challenging. I knew only about what you could achieve in it and vaguely how it was done that why I pursued in my Master course. After exposure, I learnt to turn the challenge into interesting experience, my lab Sempai (Experienced) are also very helpful and I enjoy sharing idea with them.
As I said, it was my second time to come to Japan, so I was more excited than worried about anything. Also, I had visited Waseda during the training in Okinawa for a week and thought that I wanted a different experience in Tokyo after living in Okinawa. The thought of living in a big city was exciting for me.
Everyone in my family was excited for me to get this opportunity with different experience.
Have you had any difficulties when you started a new life here?
In every place you go, you have to have a period of adapting yourself. During that period, there was maybe a bit of frustration with the language and interacting with people. But people are helpful, and that actually comforts you knowing the local people will step out to help you even if you couldn’t communicate well. There was also the time issue. When I was a student back in my country, I lived close to my Campus so I did not had any previous experience of commuting everyday to University.Commuting everyday resulted into a challenging experience as there is always a social pressure of being on time here. The train timing, reading direction in the station was really new to me. This issue was mostly occurred in my adaptation phase but as time went by it faded away. Beside those, I had no any other particular problems as when we arrived, we had a session with JICA staff. They briefed us about how things work in Japan and what to avoid and what we should do in emergency cases. We had coordinators who looked after us whenever we had problems, so it was not like you were alone. JICA was helping us a lot during that period of adaptation.Getting used to the food was also challenging. Most of the food I tasted tended to have a sweet flavor which was strange and new to me. In our country, most of our dishes are salty. At some point, I had to add salt just to get the same taste. But on the other side, there are good dishes like Ramen and Soba which are boiled and salted, I could associate with those. I eventually ended up liking some of the sweet dishes.
How is your life in Japan and Waseda?
I do not think there are any specific issues, since I started as a research student, I had a lot of time to prepare for my master’s. Everything is going smoothly now.
It sometimes gets busier, but it does not bother me at all. I manage to get my research going well and I enjoy the company and collaboration from my lab members and guidance from my Sensei as well.
I guess my toughest experience so far here was winter. It was really cold. In my country, the lowest it can get is 18 degrees Celsius. Today it is 16 degrees and still below the lowest point in temperature from my hometown. You can imagine how tough it was although we went through it with appropriate winter clothes.
What do you do in your free time?
I play basketball. Where we stay, there is a basketball court. It is actually not like a dormitory, but more of a training center. Many people from different countries come and stay there for a while, so you meet a lot of people and do not feel alone at all.
How are the relationships with your supervisor and lab members?
I think it is going well, and I like my lab very much. The structure of our lab is divided into group of interests; there are leaders in each group who can guide you. It has a friendly mood, and I really like it because it is much more like our learning style in my country. Group study is very important. You interact with each other and get ideas from people who are more experienced or with different point of view. I was really happy that they do the same thing in our lab. You may find that 6 of us are into recommendation systems, others are into natural language processing…, so we share ideas on group basis but it doesn’t prevent us to also interact with members from other groups. It also makes it easy to meet to the supervisor because you have had enough time to prepare yourself with others. PhD students and Master’s students are seated close so we can pick ideas from each other.My supervisor is really helpful. Every time I have a problem, I approach him very easily. He is very nice to me.We have about 6 or 7 international students and communicate with the Japanese students who are really helpful. Most of our lab members speak English but are reserved and very concentrated but they react very positively when you strike a conversation.
Outline of the research
My main interest are toward improving quality of recommendation systems and online purchase prediction, with the infrastructure and guidance from Yamana Lab, I hope to contribute much more to this field.
What is your career goal after your degree completion?
I am still thinking about but it all boils down to start my own business. The ABE program was specifically designed with creating link between Africa and Japan in mind. Through the program, we will have to learn the Japanese way of doing business especially area of interest through professional internships. I look forward to go back and become a link to the Japanese companies in Rwanda and Africa at large. Whenever they are interested in coming to Africa, we will be able to give them advice or create mutual benefiting opportunities. Businesses related to information science in Africa are rare but this is also a good indicator of an opportunity to become among the pioneers in the field as information science is considered as the future of business analytics. I also believe it can contribute to development of my community by providing adequate measurement and business forecast.
Short message to the prospective students
in English
Hello Everyone, I am from Rwanda, doing my graduate studies in Waseda.
I worked as software developer back home and I was seeing a huge demand in advanced data processing therefore I decided to pursue my graduate studies to respond to that demand. I’ve chosen Waseda because of it’s academic reputation and a wide international community, not only this was true when I arrived but what mostly amazed me was the student spirit of aiming high in their research. I can mostly guarantee you that joining Waseda is a life changing experience. I am looking forward to meet you!
in Kinyarwanda
Mwiriweho, ndi Umunyarwanda uri kwiga ikiciro cya kabiri cya Kaminuza muri Waseda.Nari umu software Developer mu Rwanda,aho akazi kagendaga karushaho gusaba ubumenyi bwisumbuye muri data processing, mpitamo kuza kubyigira Waseda. Nayihisemo kubera ubushobozi izwi ho mumyigishirize ndetse nokuba ifite umuryango mugari wabanyamahanga bahakora ndetse banahiga. Nkihagera nasanze ibyo byose ariko bimeze ariko icyanshimishije kurusha ibindi nuburyo abanyeshuri baho baharanira guhanika ibiva mubushakashatsi bwabo. Nkaba nakubwira ntashidikanya ko uje kwiga Waseda,wahakuranya inyigisho izakugirira akamaro mubuzima bwawe. Ndabategereje!
