The Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has delivered an inaugural speech at IDC CIO Summit, hosted in Egypt under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), and organized in collaboration with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA).
The Summit was attended by a number of decision makers and experts in major institutions and companies in various sectors. This year’s summit was held online, under the theme “Innovative Digital Strategies: Evolving to the Demands of a New Reality.”
In his speech, the ICT Minister stated that promoting creative thinking and digital innovation is a key pillar in Digital Egypt strategy. It also comes within MCIT keenness to invest in developing innovative national solutions using emerging technologies to achieve digital transformation across various sectors, in a way that contributes to improving the quality of life for Egyptians and achieving economic growth.
He added that Digital Egypt strategy has seen a great development, where a large number of innovative initiatives and projects have been implemented to enhance Egypt’s position on the ICT industry map. In addition, the ICT sector has continued to be the fastest-growing State sector; its growth rate during the current fiscal year is expected to reach about 16%. The value of the Sector’s domestic product increased from EGP 93.5 billion to EGP 107.7 billion, during the last fiscal year, with the Sector’s contribution to the national GDP reaching 4.4%, and the value of digital exports increasing from $3.6 billion to $4.1 billion.
Talaat pointed out the efforts exerted to create an inclusive digital society through a close cooperation between the government and the private sector. He said that three major projects are being implemented within Digital Egypt vision, including achieving digital transformation and digitizing government services, promoting digital innovation, and relocating the government to the New Administrative Capital, which will represent a breakthrough in the government performance to achieve the transition to a digital government.
Moreover, the ICT Minister underlined that MCIT cooperates with different ministries to achieve the transition to a digital government. A project was carried out, linking 75 databases from various government sectors, which served as a key element for achieving digital transformation based on two pillars: rendering digital services to citizens, and improving the government performance. He highlighted that the digital transformation system has been applied in Port Said City, with work underway to apply the project nationwide to achieve the transition to a comprehensive digital government.
Talaat revealed that 60 government services were made available on Digital Egypt platform that enables access of citizens to high-quality government services. In addition, in an effort to achieve digital inclusion, other channels were created to provide access to digital government services for non-tech savvy citizens.
Furthermore, the ICT Minister highlighted that Creativa Innovation Hubs are being established in universities to provide training, capacity building, entrepreneurship and incubation programs to young people and startups. The Hubs aim to connect entrepreneurs and academia with industry and investors.
Talaat also referred to the establishment of the Applied Innovation Center (AIC), two years ago. It cooperates with research institutes, academic institutions and international companies to develop innovative solutions to the challenges facing the society, using modern ICTs. He added that the Center currently focuses on agriculture, health, economic planning, infrastructure, smart cities, and Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP).
