A Canonsburg-based engineering simulation software firm is marking its first-ever expansion into the African continent following the establishment of a customer technical support office in the Rwandan city of Kigali.
It's a feat made possible for Ansys Inc. thanks to a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, the latter of which maintains its Kigali Innovation City facility for its CMU-Africa campus. Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) will use space at the Kigali Innovation City for a customer support team to provide resources and aid to Ansys's global customer base.
As a component of the partnership, those across the CMU-Africa campus will have access to Ansys Academic software for teaching and research needs.
"We are tremendously excited to establish Ansys' presence in Africa and immensely proud to expand our current partnership with Carnegie Mellon in Kigali Innovation City," Anthony Dawson, vice president of customer excellence at Ansys, said in a release. "Further, our partnership brings together two world leaders with a global mindset in engineering, computer science, and simulation technologies."
In an email statement, Dawson told Pittsburgh Inno that employment figures at the technical support office "will grow in tandem with CMU-Africa growth." The company did not provide specific employment figures.
"Ansys’ goal is to attract, recruit, and develop all the great talents graduating from CMU-Africa and to become the employer of choice in Africa," Dawson said
For now, Ansys will use shared office space with CMU at the Kigali Innovation City. Dawson said the company is actively looking for its own space to rent within the building in the near future.
