Miko Rwayitare was born on 2 December 1942 in Rwanda and completed most of his schooling in Germany, where he earned a degree in electrical and telecommunications engineering, before returning to Africa and settling in Kinshasa, then part of Zaire.
Rwayitare worked as vice president of marketing for Zaire's state mining industry before starting his own business distributing Hewlett-Packard, Rank Xerox and email technology across Zaire and much of Central Africa.
In 1986 Rwayitare and his American business partner Joseph Gatt founded Telecel International, and after months of negotiations with the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko, made Africa's first-ever cellular telephone call in Kinshasa in 1987, launching the continent's first private mobile network.
Under Rwayitare's leadership Telecel expanded to hold more than 15 cellular licences across 14 African countries, commanding roughly 40 percent of the sub-Saharan mobile market outside South Africa at its peak, and helping to push African governments to open state telecom monopolies to private investment.
In 2000 Rwayitare sold an 80 percent stake in Telecel to Egypt's Orascom Telecom, moved to South Africa, and bought the Mont Rochelle Mountain Winery, becoming the first person of African origin to own a wholly Black-owned wine estate in the country, before his death in Brussels in 2007.
- Made Africa's first-ever cellular telephone call, in Kinshasa, 1987
- Founded Telecel International, Africa's first private mobile network operator
- Expanded Telecel to over 15 licences across 14 African countries
- Helped drive the continent's shift toward mobile-first telecommunications
- First person of African origin to own a wholly Black-owned winery in South Africa
- Infrastructure gaps can be leapfrogged, not just filled. Rwayitare's mobile network bypassed the copper-wire infrastructure Africa never fully built, a model the whole continent later followed.
- A single proof of concept can open an entire market. One phone call in Kinshasa in 1987 helped convince African governments to open telecom monopolies to private investment.