{{The government of Rwanda will create a new graduate engineering program in conjunction with a major U.S. university, a step toward building itself into an African technology hub 17 years after a genocidal conflict claimed nearly a million lives.}}

Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Jared L. Cohon, president of Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University, signed the agreement Friday in Pittsburgh to establish and operate the program from Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where a new campus is to be built.

The African Development Fund is supporting the project with US$13 million in funding, according to the fund’s parent, the African Development Bank.

The tie-up says as much about the ambitions of the tiny landlocked African country as it does the U.S. engineering powerhouse, which wants to bring into its folds a new generation of tech-savvy African leaders.

Unlike China and India—two other billion-person markets—Africa generally lacks the top-flight universities to feed young talent to companies that are now investing on the continent.

“You can’t leave a billion persons behind and make this a better world,” said Pradeep K. Khosla, the head of Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering. “Our goal is to educate people who will have influence.”

The partnership will mark the first time a major U.S. university offering a graduate engineering degree program in Rwanda. Carnegie Mellon will initially offer a Master of Science in information technology.

Separately, Carnegie Mellon will work with the Rwandan government to start training programs for technology entrepreneurs.

The program aims to admit 40 students for the fall 2012 class and increase to about 150 by 2017. It will target students in east Africa—giving preference to those in Rwanda—but will be open to applicants world-wide, according to a statement from Carnegie Mellon.

In the second year, Mr. Khosla said, Carnegie Mellon will offer an additional Master of Science in electrical and computer engineering.

Some business executives in Rwanda caution that Carnegie Mellon could struggle to lift the program to U.S. standards. Rwanda has only about 11 million people and its university system is seen as lagging behind those of neighbors including Kenya.

Carnegie Mellon faculty may also face a steep learning curve teaching in a place where national aspirations typically outstrip reality on the ground.

“This is a country that dreams big,” said Carter Crockett, a management consultant in Rwanda for Karisimbi Business Partners. “But the program will need to be a long-term play.”

Under President Kagame, Rwanda has emerged as one of the continent’s most dynamic economies. It has styled itself as the Singapore of Africa, cutting away bureaucratic red tape and drawing in telecommunication companies, banks and other investors.

In a report this month, the World Economic Forum ranked Rwanda after South Africa and Mauritius as the most economically competitive countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Rwandan president, a former guerrilla commander, helped rescue Rwanda from a 1994 genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsi, as well as some Hutu. But in his 17 years in power, Mr. Kagame has also been criticized by human-rights groups for stifling dissent.

Carnegie Mellon’s Mr. Khosla said the university isn’t worried about major political unrest upending the program. He said the university conducted a risk analysis and judged that probability “extremely low.”

Write to Peter Wonacott at peter.wonacott@wsj.com