Making it the first American university in Central Africa, Carnegie Mellon University will open a branch in Rwanda next year,said UFDpoint.

The students who attend the program in Kigali, Rwanda s capital, you will get a diploma in exactly the same people who attend Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh s campus. Credits from the two programs will even be fully transferable.

Rwanda s President, Paul Kagame, will give a speech later Friday in Pittsburgh, announcing details of the program. The first degree offered will be a Master of Science in Information Technology.

Branch campuses are common in the oil-rich Persian Gulf, Europe, and China, as are student exchange programs. But actually opening a higher education facility in central Africa is an entirely different thing, said Bruce Jones, a professor at New York University and author of Peacekeeping in Rwanda, an analysis of the events that led to the country s 1994 genocide.

“That strikes me as a very significant thing. The odds are very high that that s for the good,” Jones said of CMU s plans.

The program will target students from east Africa, and will give preference to Rwandan citizens, the university said. However, students from around the world can apply. During the genocide, extremist Hutus killed more than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.