CAIRO – Egypt’s digital strategy primarily aims to provide better and easier services to citizens and encourage entrepreneurship, said Communications and IT Minister Amr Talaat.
Delivering a speech during opening the Government Data and Cloud Computing Centre in Ain el Sokhna Road, in the presence of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Talaat reviewed Egypt’s digital strategy and its various goals and axes.
The strategy has three main goals, including providing easier services to citizens, supporting youth to compete effectively in the local and international domestic market, and encouraging entrepreneurship and enhancing innovation, he added.
Communications and IT Minister Amr Talaat underlined that digital transformation means digitalizing all state measures to offer facilitated procedures for all citizens.
He made the remarks while delivering a speech during opening the Government Data and Cloud Computing Center in Ain el Sokhna Road, in the presence of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
Talaat said more than 100 data bases were linked and President Sisi launched the Digital Egypt platform where 130 different government services are offered, but later on the number of services increased to 170 services.
More than 8 million people registered on Digital Egypt, he said.
He noted that the ministry launched the Digital Egypt Cubs Initiative “DECI” and Digital Egypt Marvels Initiative (DEMI) to equip youngsters with IT skills, helping create young talents with proven competence in emerging technologies and fulfilling the national vision of keeping up with the sciences and requirements of tomorrow’s labor market.
He added that there are 12 WE schools in each governorate, noting that the ministry plans to increase the number of schools to 27 in each governorates.
He noted that Egypt established the first communications and IT university in Africa.
He added that several training initiatives were launched, including Digital Egypt Builders Initiative.
Since 2018 until now, the ministry doubled the number of trainees each year from 100 to 4,000, he said, adding that the budget increased 34 times from EGP 50 million to EGP 1.7 billion.
Communications and IT Minister Amr Talaat said digital Egypt strategy also aims at incentivizing innovation and encouraging entrepreneurs, noting that the government secured three business incubators in 2016.
He referred to the launch of Creativa Innovation Hubs which is an initiative by the Egyptian government and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), implemented through the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC).
The project aims to support and assist students, entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized enterprises and startups to become key actors in bringing digital transformation within the reach of all industry sectors.
Talaat said said President Sisi opened eight hubs in 2022 and the number of hubs increased to 20 by the end of 2023, adding that over eight new hubs will be established this year.
He said these centers incubated 400 companies in various governorates in 2022-2023 and offered training for entrepreneurs of these companies.
He added that enhancing fixed internet services came at the top of promoting the digital infrastructure, noting that dlrs 2.5 billion was allocated to boosting fixed internet service in 2018.
He said the ministry managed to up the fixed internet speed 11 times.
Communications and IT Minister Amr Talaat said the ministry laid down a plan for digitalizing its work and establishing a data center at its HQ within this context.
He said the IT industry is moving ahead towards establishing mega data centers that are set up at highly-efficient international standards and at the highest technical level, thus encouraging investment of international companies specialized in the computing cloud.
Communications and IT Minister Amr Talaat said there are plans to open three mega data centres; main data center, data-exchange state center and strategic data center.
The government has issued a cloud computing policy that mandates government entities to prefer cloud computing over traditional systems.
The minister also stated that all the Digital Egypt platforms providing services and related data are within the data centers that will be inaugurated today.
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